I read a book about a guy who did that drive in a pickup truck with his friend. They put the truck in a shipping container to get down to the southern end, and they drove north. I think in Panama they had to do a ferry ride somewhere to get around that section of jungle. And the only trouble they had the whole trip was some corrupt cops who stopped them in Mexico. Once they hit the US southern border, they traveled to the tip of Alaska in just like 3 days, which was how long it would take them to go a few hundred miles through some parts of the jungle.
Edit:
Road Fever by Tim Cahill