Sweet, Caroline: US ambassador to drive battered Ford 3000km in rev-head rally

Caroline Kennedy’s soft power diplomacy mission is stepping up a gear.

The United States ambassador to Australia is preparing to drive in a beaten-up Ford Falcon around the Australian outback to raise money for the Cancer Council.

Kennedy, the daughter of the late US President John F. Kennedy, first flagged her interest in participating in the Shitbox Rally in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age last year.

US ambassador Caroline Kennedy will participate in the Shitbox Rally to raise money for cancer research.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Kennedy heard about the event in October 2022, not long after arriving in Australia, when she visited a Bunnings hardware store in Canberra to experience an authentic Australian sausage sizzle and got chatting to the volunteers.

Now, to the alarm of some safety-conscious staff members at the US embassy in Canberra, Kennedy is carrying through with her plan and will be one of the 500-odd people to participate in the April event.

The rally begins in Adelaide and will see the participants drive on dusty, mostly unsealed roads for 3000 kilometres until they reach Perth.

Along the way, Kennedy and fellow embassy staff members will drive up the Oodnadatta Track to Uluru, towards the Gibson Desert and down the Great Central Road. At night, they will camp in tents.

Like all the other drivers, Kennedy’s car, which she procured with the help of rally organisers, is worth under $1500. No four-wheel-drives are allowed in the rally.

“It’s the most Australian way we can do it, and the people we are supporting are globally leading cancer researchers here in Australia,” Kennedy said in a video showing off the Falcon and asking for donations.

A member of one of America’s most elite and storied families, Kennedy has developed a surprising reputation as a rev-head since arriving in Australia.

She has attended the Summernats festival in Canberra twice, including this year when she filmed hot rods doing burnouts on her phone and met entrants in the Dirty Mullet Fest.

Currently painted yellow, orange and red, a new design for Kennedy’s shitbox will be unveiled before she participates in the rally.

James Freeman, who founded the rallies in 2009 after losing both parents to cancer within 12 months, said it was a “true honour” that Kennedy had agreed to be a part of the event.

“I am extremely proud and excited that the US ambassador to Australia has chosen to take part in Shitbox Rally,” he said.

“The ambassador will participate in the same manner as everyone else with fundraising for cancer research, driving a shitbox and camping under the stars.”

First as Barack Obama’s deputy and now as president, Joe Biden has championed his cancer moonshot initiative, described as a “national effort to end cancer as we know it”.

Kennedy’s ambassadorial travels have already taken her across Australia, including to the Garma Festival in the Northern Territory, a Dolly Parton drag show in Perth and climbing 80 metres up a tree in an old-growth forest in Tasmania.

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