This section covers all the Ws: who, where, why, what, when, and, erm, how. 
A daily record of the plans made and the decisions taken. 
Click on the articles below for the latest news.

We are inching closer to being done. The car has just had £860 worth of work, including a fresh MOT, a full service, and new pads and discs all round. Just need to get the air con regassed, and we are there. While at the garage, I also got them to swap the lovely silver alloys for the moody black ones, which better fit the colour scheme. I also had confirmation that we can take the car to Aintree Racecourse for some photos! Our Communications Manager has a contact who has

After the excitement of receiving our magnet pack yesterday, today was filled with 'going to the dentist' levels of dread as the car was going into the garage for its shakedown. Carl did this recently, and it cost him £1,100! To be fair, that did include a service and MOT. I also asked them for a price to change the brake callipers from the standard ones to the red Competitionoze ones I bought when I was drunk. I asked if they could check that they were working and would a

I couldn't put it off any longer; the car is booked into the garage for its shake-down. I explained to the mechanic over the phone that we were driving to the South of France in it. He interrupted me to say, "In a Fiat 500?" with a surprised tone. "Yes," I said. "Right," he replied in the same surprised tone... I explained that the car is running well. The only real issue it has is a squeaky clutch, which, according to the internet, 'often results from a dry, worn throw-out b

It looks like it's not just us Rally Ravers giving our cars a makeover. I spotted this on social media and snorted out my coffee. The owner has tried to turn a small, Japanese 'kei' car (vehicles subject to strict length, width, and power constraints to qualify for significantly lower road tax, insurance, and parking costs in Japan) into a fire-breathing European rally monster. Gawd bless 'em, they have gone to town on a shopping cart on wheels to try and make it resemble

Negotiations with Colour Create have been ongoing. Kevin, their Production Manager, has been sending me updates on the design we are looking for. His latest message was requesting confirmation of the car's measurements, so Lisa and I went with a tape measure and a scrap of paper. He estimated the dimensions based on the car schematic I sent him, and to be fair, his estimates were almost exactly right. The bonnet graphic needed to be a little longer, the boot one a little s

Can you believe this is the 200th blog post on our pokey little corner of the internet? If that isn't a good enough reason to write a post taking stock of where we are, our achievements and what is still to do, I don't know what is. So where are we? We have registered three cars for the event and have five of the six drivers sorted. Carl is still looking for his co-driver, but Lisa and I are completely invested in driving Team: Dirty Martin around Europe, as are Richie an

We visited Colour Create yesterday and met Barry and Kevin. I rambled on about the trip born from a stupid idea, fuelled by alcohol and fed by a 'you only live once' attitude. They initially looked at us like we were daft, I reckon they are right to be honest! I showed them images of what we would like. I explained my reservations about sticking a magnet over the contours of the car. They had a sample of the automotive-grade magnetic sticker, which was thinner than I expe

I've been scouring the internet for a good, reliable local printer to see if they can help us with our livery. There are lots of choices, but I was struggling to find one that stood out and that I felt comfortable with. I was in the office and noticed our company had big displays, so I got in touch with our Communications Manager, who tipped me off to a company called Colour Create. She raved about their service and quality and advised me to drop her and our company's name,

While browsing for some Martini Racing bits ahead of the summer trip, I stumbled across this beauty. Distinctive yet minimal, this looks the mutt's nuts. This then sent me down a rabbit hole of looking for VW T2 vans on eBay, and the results were initially surprising. For a few grand, I could pick up a '70s T2 with around 50000 miles on the clock - result. But, in the immortal words of Prince, "all that glitters aint gold". After examining the pictures a little closer, th

I don't know, you wait months for new content, and then, just like buses, three articles arrive at once! If you have been paying attention, you will know that R&R have a new car for the trip and are thinking about ideas for decoration and theme. I sent them a link to the article the other day, and Richie responded with an AI-generated image of a Q2 in blue with full rally markings. The livery included their granddaughter's name and the day she was born as a number - very f

Now that R&R have their car for the journey, we need to think about a theme for them. Initially, they played around with the idea of buying a Ford Transit and making it look like the A-Team van, topped off with Richie in an inflatable dinosaur costume to represent Hannibal Smith's penchant for working as an extra in films, and Rachel dressed as B.A. Baracus (the idea of her crossing international borders in disguise as a black man didn't faze her). Then Richie bought a black

The tale of the third car in our convoy has had more twists than the Gotthard Pass. Remember when R&R were supposed to use an Abarth ; then, when more comfort was required, there was tongue-in-cheek talk of a funeral car? Next, a van was suggested to help with the fancy-dress part of the trip, before they settled on a Ford Kuga , which was then potentially swapped for a campervan . Yeah, well, all that is in the past. The Abarth/funeral car/van/Kuga/campervan is dead! L

I stumbled across this advert from the 2012 Super Bowl the other day. I'd never seen it before, and it had me giggling. No spoilers here, except that the title of the post is a translation of the first line spoken in the ad. Oh yeah, it is all in Italian...deliberately. Click below to watch. The full translation is: Line 1: “Che cosa guardi, eh?” (repeated twice… followed by a slap!) Translation: “ What are you looking at, huh?” Line 2: “Mi stai spogliando con gli occhi?”

Hot on the heels of the dashboard in 'Bert' doing an impression of Blackpool Illuminations , Abbie decided to join the party with a light of her own after a trip down a particularly bumpy road. Over the weekend, we went to our friend's 50th birthday party. They live in an idyllic hamlet up in Lancashire, about 30 minutes away. We were running a little late, so I used Google Maps to give me the quickest possible route to their house. Next time, I'll study the route before b

Ever experienced that sudden jolt of panic when your engine light unexpectedly flickers on? That's exactly what happened to Carl, as he was happily cruising in to Cheltenham this weekend. He messaged me to say the dreaded light had come on on his way down south, not long after he stopped for fuel at a 'dodgy petrol station'. 'Bert' was limping along, but he wasn't well. After spending a few days down South, Carl was preparing for the long journey home by filling up Bert. H

I almost found the perfect support vehicle for our epic jaunt across Europe next year. I stumbled across this cracking-looking...

Remember I was saying that I might need to cut AI some slack after Leonardo, the image-creating website, took my prompt, embellished it,...

I'm still struggling to come up with content for this little corner of the Internet because of stuff happening in the real world, but as...

I write these stupid little posts when the muse takes me. So often, I knock out four, five, or six articles in one session and then sit...

If I change the car's scheme to the new, fresher Martini Racing or the Castrol Oil one , I will be copying Scalextric vehicles rather...