Mongol Rally

Is that where the car must cost less than £1,000 or something similar? I would love to do something like it, but I'm not mechanically minded and I know anything I bought would break down on the way to Dover and I'd have no idea how to fix it!

 

It's something that I think would be absolutely amazing to do. There was a group in my year at my school who did it the summer we left - not very nice people, but I gather they had a great time.

Similar to nascot though, I know if something broke, i'd be in a bit of trouble as I'd have next to no idea as to how to fix it!

 

Sounds like a real laugh.

Book some evening classes on car maintenance and also learn how to weld. There's loads of you tube clips out there also.

If you've not done if before, service your own car, then offer to do a few other peoples. Experience on different carshelps. I helped my dad service his cars from the age of about 12, did all of my own on my old mini. Managed to change brakes, alternator etc. Not massive jobs but stuff that would fox most people these days. The only thing stopping me now is that the meistermobile is new and is all full of electronics.

When choosing a car, go for something older but in better condition, with less electronic things to go wrong and get a Haynes manual for it. You can pretty much disassemble and reassemble a car with a Haynes manual.


Have a look at some of the Top gear challenges, the best cars are always the simplest.

 

That looks amazing, I want to do it now

 

Had a mate do it last year. Done it in an old 53 plate Astramax diesel van, brought it up in Wakefield as it was a lot cheaper up there! It was one of those things he wanted to do before he was 30 and reckoned they had the time of his life. None of the team had particularly any engineering experience other than the basics that most of us know and not a great deal went wrong other than battery, a few punctures and that. The only major thing was a new exhaust box but they managed to convince some garage in Istanbul to help them out through using google translate on their phone and Opel actually sent them the parts free of charge.

Looking at pics they took, it does look an amazing thing to do.

 

Some friends of mine did something similar, but I think they were going through the Stans rather than Mongolia. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and all that ****. Big countries full of nothing.

 

I think they enjoyed it. I didn't delve into it too deeply because tales of sand and camels are rarely interesting, but I will ask them some questions when next I see them and post you their response.

 

I though the correct term was Down Syndrome now, shame on you.

 

I've not done the Mongol one but recently done the Motoscape Banger Rally to Venice. Only rules were it had to be a car either older than 20 years or costing less than £333. Did just short of 3000 miles in 6 days going through 9 countries including a lap of the Nurburgring and driving over Stelvio Pass in Italy.

My tip......do it! It's the most fun you'll ever have out of bed, or if you know my ex-wife, even in bed.

 

Hammers are you best friend in this case, Smash the barstewards

 

The car I chose was a 22 year old Mazda 323 which I bought off eBay having not even seen it. Other than putting two part worn tyres on it (£30 the pair) and checking fluid levels it had zero pre-rally maintenance but performed amazingly well. The mountain passes (I reckon we did about 300 mountain hairpin bends in total) are very hard on a car and by the time we got back the front suspension mounts were dead. Not once did it let us down however, although our laps round the Nurburgring could have been measured using the position of the sun!

We started in France and each morning were given an evening destination so you could do what you wanted in between your start/end points. We chose to get in as many countries as possible so from France went to Brussels then over the Dutch border to Maastricht. From there we went back through Belgium and dropped into Luxembourg before heading back through Belgium to our overnight stop in Koblenz (Germany) via the Nurburgring.

From there it got a bit blurry as we skipped in and out of several countries - Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On route to Italy we took a slight detour via Liechtenstein, as how many times are you gonna get to go there, then into Italy. On route to Venice we stopped off in Maranello, went to the Ferrari museum and drove (at significant expense!) a Ferrari round the streets of Maranello. From there to Venice and that was the trip.

Driving in France is fantastic - roads are great and empty. Belgian roads are shockingly bad and the country is DULL. Netherlands we didn't touch too much and Luxembourg we just went in and out to get cheap petrol and to say we'd been there. Germany is a fantastic country. The people are friendly, the roads are good and although the driving is fast it's disciplined. The scenery in Germany is stunning. Italy is beautiful and the women are stunning although driving there is terrifying. Very fast, absolutely no rules and if you get out alive you've done well.

Great fun, ticked a few things off my bucket list and met some great people. Cost a few quid but it's only money - can't take it with you.

 

Looks like Stelvio (below)..... when it's snowing at the top (which it was), two part-worn tyres for thirty quid didn't seem quite so sensible!!!

 

Shame the old Meistermobile bit the dust. I could have entered that.

This looks like a seious good laugh.

 

Shouldn't we refer to this as the Trisomy 21 rally or something?

Can't be to careful you know, there's internet police everywhere.

 

Yeah it's a Watford fan.

http://www.watfordfc.com/news/article/140722-mongol-rally-1774599.aspx?

 

Dodgy link. I presume you purchased a Micra?

 

Youll ptobably get a couple of hundred for the number plate if you list it for sale.

 

al jazeera, innit

 

Is it a private plate though? Just a standard NI plate.