The time has come and we’re officially setting off on the Bangers4BEN 2014 road trip!
Preparation has been a breeze thanks to the guys over at BEN. Myself and my co-driver were told at pretty late notice that we’d be taking part in the event so we’ve not had much time to sort everything out, however, we pulled through and are raring to get going.
The organisers tell participants to spend around £750 on a ‘banger’, the idea is to try and grab yourself a bargain so that you make a little bit of profit when the car goes to be auctioned off at the end of the event. We’ve decided to use the company car which is a 2004 Vauxhall Astra ‘Club’. We’ll be hoping to pull in a little over £1000 when the car goes off to auction, all money will then be donated to BEN.
The theme of this years fancy dress was supposed to be ‘The Italian Job’, however, our colleague who took part in last years event has told us that this doesn’t apply to the fancy dress, let’s hope he’s not stitched us up as we’ve gone for a Bananas In Pyjamas theme.
The car was sent off earlier this week to the guys over at Lustalux Ltd. who are based near us in Preston. It’s safe to say that my initial ideas for the car were blown out the water by the designers in their offices. The car is looks fantastic and is a real head turner (words I never thought i’d use when talking about a Vauxhall Astra).
As you can see in the pictures, they’ve fully wrapped the boot and bonnet in the stripes from the bananas’ pyjamas. We’ve then got the bananas from the show poking out from each wheel arch as well as the essential ‘rally style’ driver markings for each character.
The car has also been valeted for the journey, which doesn’t sound too exciting, but I can assure you that when I sat in the car for the first time, it became apparent that this hasn’t been done in the 10 years we’ve owned this car.
The guys over at CVM Preston were also kind enough to check all the fluid levels in the car before we set off, nice one guys!!
So there we have it, preparations are all complete and we’re ready to embark on the first leg of the tour down to Dover Ferry Port, estimated to take around 6 hours (311 miles).
We’ll be passing through France, Switzerland and Italy on our travels so it’s bound to be a cracker of a weekend!
Keep checking back at the blog for regular updates on the tour. We’ll also be live tweeting from our Twitter account here as well as updating our Facebook page.
If you’re wanting to check out all the other participants on Twitter, look out for the hashtag #B4B2014. Alternatively, we’ll be using the hashtag #BananasOnTour
Thanks for reading, the bananas are going on a European tour!
