In July 2010, Andy, Chris and Alex are taking part in our inaugral Wacky Rally. Firstly we must advise all of our loving wives that this is a Charity Rally and definately not a holiday. Definately.
For the Princely Sum of £200 we have secured an exceptional 1997 Citroen Xantia 2.1 Turbo Diesel Estate (The 1.9 is for wimps!) The Car is beautiful having covered a very tiny 136000 careful miles and with only seven previous owners. The first owner was a elderly vicar who only used it to take old people to the local community centre, the last 6 owners were ladies from the local Womens institute. apparently 6 illegitimate children were concieved in this love bus.
Background
This piece of Automotive history left the factory in France in 1997 with a staggering 110BHP, to put this into perspective the Ferrari 125 S only left Italy with 100BHP just 50 short years earlier, so you could say this was a Ferrari beater. Also the Citroen was available in a choice of colours and was a far cheaper vehicle. The Ferrari is also rubbish at towing caravans and taking crap from the loft to the tip.
The Car
To Compliment the specialist dark burgandy/lighter Burgandy/Even Lighter Burgandy paintwork Citroen fitted a stunning interior that will be the envy of all other competitors. The car is trimmed in a beautiful grey and brown used foam colour with added black circles......Thinking about it the circles might have been fag burns but it doesnt detract on the whole visual experience.
On this model it seems Citroen did not put any cloth on the seats as such to save overall weight in the car in anticipation of this event. Weight is a killer in any motorsport and this is no exception. The more cynical of you may consider these seats to be completely worn away, this is clearly not the case and jealousy is a terrible thing, get over yourselves.
The car is fitted with a bespoke air conditioning system, just in case you are cold and have pressed the button accidentally it blows 300 Degree Celsius air at you for 30 seconds and then goes a bit chilly afterward.
The car has buttons on the steering wheel to operate the high quality audio system, however this audio system has been removed therfore we have decided to pretend these buttons change the setup of the gearbox/suspension/differential/power like on a BMW M5.
****PLEASE NOTE**** For legal reasons I must point out that whilst a BMW M5 has 507BHP our car is about 500BHP shy of that. Although it had 110 BHP when it left the factory some of those horses have escaped, somebody must have left the gate open......probably Chris actually, he is always looking at his watch panicking what time he can leave work.
Wheels and Tyres
The Car sits on its factory 15" alloy wheels, why mess with a legend!, Modern classic cars such as this thrive on being original and the value of this car can only skyrocket in the next couple of years. We always consider the Residual values of any vehicles we own.
Tyre choice is critical in any form of motorsport especially rallying. Remeber the immortal words from Days of Thunder "TYRES WIN RACES" hence choosing tyres we couldn't decide on the best ones to get, so we decided to use 1 tyre on each corner from the foremost leaders in worldwide tyre engineering, Tyre technology from Montenegro, Swaziland, East Timor and Turkmenistan have all contributed to find the optimal car setup.
Due to our ongoing Environmental policy all of our Tyres were recycled from "Griffo's Tyres" , Our vehicle is also Carbon Neutral when the engine is not running.
So there you have it, Alex keeps raving about how fantastic the car is and definately doesnt think a BMW or Mercedes is better.#
1 fat bloke, 1 balding thin bloke with OCD and 1 interpreter, should make for a good holiday.....I mean Charity Rally!!!
10/02/2010 - Photos of our car interior before our new interior is fitted by Chris, apparently there has been about 30 litres of black smelly water come out of the valeting machine whilst cleaning.
08/03/2010 - New (old) interior supplied for free by Nine Locks Vehicle dismantlers in Breirley Hill (THANKS ROB!) car smells much better, the interior now looks more Kate Moss than Moss Side.
19/4/2010 Business is dead so lets start painting the motor, have really struggled for an original theme, knowing our luck 4 people will turn up this year with exactly the same concept.
20/04/2010 - Spolier fitted free of charge by Image 4 Fabrications in Stourbridge. CHEERS COLIN AND PAT.
21/04/2010 - Mmm I wonder what it could be???, work in progress as we shall demonstrate later. Its amazing what you can do with 2 tins of gloss and a pocketful of dreams. We were going to paint it with twopack but apparently he was shot in 1996 leaving a Las Vegas casino........
22/04/2010 - Ordered stickers ........ Big thank you to FATSTRIP.COM
24/4/2010......can you tell what it is yet?
26/4/2010 - Our secret weapon fitted today.
28/4/2010 - 90% done just a few tweaks to go!
06/06/2010 - Disaster ! Alex the interpreter cant make it, trying to find a replacement might be the old man.
07/06/2010 - Great news its a family affair. Dads coming to fill Alex place. He is a good bloke to know if you break down.
09/06/2010 - Located a CB Radio for the trip. Whats your handle and how many candles are you burning?
11/06/2010 - Saw "The Rodfathers" Dyna Rod Reliant on the M6 today just past Fort Dunlop, looks very good guys!
17/06/2010 - Been fund raising at Manheim Car Auctions, Gloucester. Raised about £500 from sponsors and lots put in by Beacon Centre for the Blind. Many Thanks to all at Manheim for your help.
Shitron WRC
