Posted by Ian
How do you take a £750 second hand car that's seen better days and make it worth over £1,000? Drive it on a lap around Europe, according to four intrepid Preloved members who are hoping to raise more than £1,000 for a hospice charity. We talk to chief mechanic Mark Buzer about their upcoming adventure.
The Screwball rally was inspired by the famous Gumball rally, where the rich and wealthy drive their Ferraris, Porches, Astons and Lamborghinis across Europe. However, contestants in the Screwball rally may only spend a maximum of £750 buying their car, making the entries slightly less exotic. Also, the entire event is for charity, raising many thousands of pounds for worthwhile causes.
We start off at Dover, then cross France through Dijon and down to southern France. We put our cars through their paces as we traverse the Alps through France, Italy, Austria and then to southern Germany. Finally, those surviving contestants blast (or limp) up the Autobahn across Germany to return to France and the finish line in Calais. In five days we hope to cover around 3000 kilometres.
We decided that we would try to cram as much style and comfort as we could into our £750. After spending many an evening trawling Preloved for something suitable we found a Mercedes 300 SE. Brand new, this would have cost nearly £50,000 but we managed to bargain the seller down to our budget. It's got a bit of a clonk coming from the rear axle on left hand bends and it doesn't particularly like moving off on a hill, but I'm sure it will be OK!
We're raising money for Havens Hospices in Essex. They provide outstanding support to the terminally ill, providing respite breaks, symptom control and end of life care for adults, children and their families.
We're hoping to raise over £1,000 for this worthwhile cause so we would absolutely love it if people could spare a few pounds to sponsor us and help us reach our goal. They can do this completely securely on our Just Giving Page. We really think this is a worthwhile cause and you can be assured the money will be well spent.
Preloved would like to wish the team the best of luck. Click here to find out more about Havens Hospice, and click here to make a donation.
Read the Preloved blog and join us in our love for some of the older things in life.
