Many thanks!

We would all just like to say thank you very much to everyone who sponsored us on our little trip. In the end we managed to raise £1,675 and the whole event pulled in £86,000 for Gemin-i.org, the most they have ever raised.

Thanks also go to Javier, Chris and all the others who managed to organise a bunch of idiots to drive knackered cars to the sunny side of Europe. Ta!

RIP The Blingmobile

We are sad to mourn the loss of our dear friend, The Blingmobile. She was taken to a nice sunny spot, where many of her friends already lay, to await the mobile crusher.

Goodbye dear friend, we shall miss you.

Many of her parts, however, found good homes. The seat covers, Tony the Tiger (who was brutally vandalised on the last night!) and the Blingcycle were all taken by "Lady Wrasse and the Sea Urchins" (in a Volvo estate painted to look like a clown fish) and should be winding their way back to Scotland as we speak. Hopefully, we shall see tham again, somewhere.

The Sultans win!

Our hard work has paid off. We won the "Best Banger In Show" award, which was voted for by the other teams. Time to sit back and bask in the glory.

Well done to Bangera Knights for winning most money raised, Club Tropicana for winning most money raised without corporate help and the guys in Peggy for winning best costumes. They thoroughly deserved it for staying in full drag the entire time!

Cabo Da Roca

We made it! After a good day behind the wheel, we arrived at our
destination, the most westerly point on mainland Europe.

After all the stops, detours and other teams who really don't know
where they're going, we triumphed at the finish line by coming
officially...

LAST!

That's right, last. We actually held up the organisers and set the
rest of the day back. It just goes to show that without the Sultans,
the day cannot continue!

Right, pitch the tent quickly and bring on the beer!

I told you it fits!

Pictures

A nearly rescue!

We just past the "Somerst Pieway Patrol" at the side of the road and decided to attempt a daring rescue. We turned round at the next junction and went back for our stricken comrades. We pased them the other way and turned back in the right direction. We readied ourselves by donning high-viz jackets, tools and utilising our emergency services siren, to find they'd legged it, thwarting our Somaritan-ness.

The Sultans of Bling - the 37th emergency service.

We have sun!

No update recently. This was mainly due to the campsite being half way up a mountain (well, a medium sized hill at least) and not being able to connect this thing to the internet. Mobile technology would be amazing if it smegging worked. The Sultans were also slighlty delicate this morning.

Camping was good last night, apart from random rain. The Bling table came out for the first time and the Blingcycle was modified to include a handy drinks holder, which was mighty useful. It then suffered slight damage during a "who can get it the furthest up the really big hill" competition, and is now stuck in top gear.

I'll try and get some more photos up, but this thing is really struggling.

We're pushing into Spain now and the weather is glorious. Not a cloud in the sky, scorchio! About time!

And we've just clicked past 1000 miles. Wooho!

Spain!

And its smegging raining again! Where's the sun?

Funny French

You would think that nobody had ever seen a car with a tiger glued to
it's roof before by the looks we've ben getting.

First night over

When you are camping in the worst thunderstorm ever, we recommend that you close the windows on the tent.

We didn't.

Stuff is now wet.

Never mind, we've been to the supermarket and we're back on the road, heading for northern Spain. It's a good job we didn't drink anything last night or we might have a headache.

La Rochelle

It's been a long day, but we're here.

The tent is big, really big. We can actually get the Blingmobile in it, no exageration. Putting this thing up everyday is going to get irritating.

The Sultans have some advice for the general population. Firstly; France is a big country. It is never a good idea to get trolleyed and decide to walk from the town back to the camp site. It is an exceedingly long way (especially in flip flops).

Secondly;

NEVER USE SAT NAV IN LA ROCHELLE!

Enough said.

First breakdown

Disaster! We lost power to the cigarette lighter! Quick fuse change
later and we're back on the road.

We now might remove the fan, light, sat nav, ipod, phone etc and
moderate it's usage.

Sucata Run is go!

We're off! Next stop: La Rochelle.

Morning!

3 hours sleep later...

Rouen

We've arrived at the hotel and found "The General" (Team General
Ignorance) in the car park. We'll let its tyres down in the morning.

France!!

We're off the ferry and heading for Rouen. The car has suffered a bit
in the rain. The "waterproof" printer paper we used for some of the
graphics seems to be anything but, and we've lost most of the colour.
Ho hum.

And were off!

The Sultans are on the move! Were not quite sure how the Blingmobile is going to hold up in the rain, but hopefully it will dry out in France.

Next stop: Dover! (after a quick stop at the palace of Sheik Enotstired).

It's finished!

The car is now finished-ish (apart from the problem wheel, but a new tyre was aquired today). I thought I would treat all you lovely people to a show.

(Ignore the wheel!)

(Yes, that is a megaphone!)

(Still work in progress!)

Check, check, one, two...

This is a mobile blog test. If you can read it, woohoo, we are mobile! Bring on the road!

Last day of preparation

Well, it's the day before we leave and we're almost ready. The car will be finished tonight (apart from a last minute tyre issue) and we will set off tomorrow evening. Before we post pictures of the finished article, here is our blinged-out petrol cap:

The bonnet

The bonnet artwork is coming along nicely. Here is the final design that is being used and is currently looking better than any of us had hoped. We should be finished soon!

Keep it coming...

People keep insisting on being generous. With a little over a week until we set off, we are on the verge on hitting our second target and are currently sitting in 8th place, with only about £100 between us and 4th. To that end, I am increasing it again to £1750!

The paintshop

Work has begun on the Blingmobile in earnest. After 5 hours in the paint shop, loads of paint, cloth, glue, masking tape and pizza, the ultimate chariot is beginning to take shape. We don't want to reveal it to the world until it is finished, but to keep you excited (we know you are) here are a few teasers.

Initial target reached!

We have just heard the good news that the "Drunk Drivers" team, who unfortunately had to pull out of this years event, have generously allowed us to assimilate their donations into our total (I think it's fair as we share the same friends and whose loyalties were torn between the two teams anyway!).

Our offline donations have therefore been increased by £110 (I know that technically they are online donations, but I don't know how else to show it), which means we have hit the £1000 barrier and moved into 12th place! Thanks lads!

As a result, our target has now increased to £1500!

2 weeks to go!

As we've only got 2 weeks to go, I thought I would give you a little information on where exactly we're going. We leave the night of Wednesday 20th and take a late ferry to Calais. We then have to navigate our way to Rouen, in the dark, on the wrong side of the road, in an unfamiliar country in an unfamiliar car. From then it's easy!

1. Wed 20th: Woking to Rouen
   
2. Thurs 21st: Rouen to La Rochelle
   
3. Fri 22nd: La Rochelle to San Sebastian
   
4. Sat 23rd: San Sebastian to Salamanca
5. Sun 24th: Salamanca to Cabo da Roca
6. Mon 25th: Wake up late and dispose of the car
   
7. Tues 26th: Fly home (hopefully, if we've made it)

The route will be a perilous one, but our will is strong, as is our steed. Long live the Sultans!

Nearly there...

Over £900 raised now, we're so close to our initial target. Hopefully we can pass it and go on even further.

Bling-mobile-wise, we sorted the timing belt after borrowing an impact driver and a compressor from work (it's so easy when you have the right tools), but we now have a knackered tyre (urrghh, when will it all end... etc). We have some initial designs for what we want to do to the car with some great artwork coming along for the bonnet (see below).

With more tiger skin on the way, pure gold wheels and diamond encrusted body panels, the vehicle will be truly worthy of the sultans! We'll keep you posted...

The Sultans media blitz

The Sultans of Bling blanket media blitz begins with huge news that Radio Jackie has covered our noble cause. Navigate to www.radiojackie.com/localinfomain.htm, click on "View Appeals" and then "Simon Lay". Alternatively, click here.

24-hour BBC and Sky News coverage awaits!

Time for a service!

With August fast approaching, we thought we should crack on with the car. Having over 130K on the clock and no sign of ever having a timing belt replacement, we erred on the side of caution and decided to change it. It turned out to be a good decision, as we found one of the camshaft sprockets was loose and we wouldn't have got very far if it had come off!


However, the lower pulley was a stubborn bugger and wouldn't budge (the sprockets were turning on the camshafts rather than it move - whoever designed the camshafts on this thing wants a slap) so we had to abandon it for the day. After changing some fluids and filters we moved on to stage 1 of the interior.

Now, very wealthy people (including Sultans such as ourselves) can afford the finer things in life, including animal hides. This includes those from the incredibly rare "London Urban Tiger", which we decided would compliment our interior nicely, if we could find one. Luckily, we “know” people and as you can see, this endangered species is now that bit closer to extinction.


We need entertainment on the journey, so out came the hacksaw and out came the centre console. After lots of cutting, filing and grinding we ended up with a stereo, a CB radio (to keep Snowman informed of Smoky’s location) and the secret weapon; a PA system that can make animal noises (more about this soon)!


Hopefully we’ll sort the timing belt next week.

Donation update

£525 donated - We're over half-way to the initial target with 3 months to go and have moved up into 5th position. At this rate, we'll be increasing the target! Don't forget, all the donated money goes to charity. We will not take any of it for expenses!

Official photos released

Here they are, the official promo pictures for the team. Click on each image for a larger version.

Donation update

£205 donated - We are currently 9th out of 81 teams in terms of money raised so come on, think of the children!

"Bling Machine" found!

After a difficult period of no motor syndrome, the "Bling Machine" or "Blingmobile" has been purchased. The chosen one is a 1.8 LX (that's right, you heard - LX - all mod cons!) 16v Mondeo saloon. It has a bit of a damp problem in the boot, but we'll sort that. Note the bling-worthy alloy wheels and super trick spoiler.

Donation update

£185 donated - The ball is well and truly rolling now

Donation update

£60 donated - no car yet though

Finding a car on such a tight budget that will actually make it 1500 miles through Europe in the hottest month of the year is proving a challenge. We were excited by a Citroen BX (that's never happened before) but were a bit too late. A Renault Espace was bid on, but some people are far too keen to pay over the odds for a clapped-out people carrier and we were out-bid. The fact that both of these motors were French is purely coincidental (although it may give us sway with the locals in the first part of our trip) as we're really not that fussy.

The search continues...

The trials of buying a banger

We went to look at a car today, at least we tried to. Unfortunately, we ended up spending an hour on the hard shoulder, waiting for a breakdown recovery.

Its ironic that we can't even make it to Reading, never mind Lisbon!

Let's start at the very beginning...

Once upon a time, after stumbling on a website and thinking "that sounds cool", 4 drunk men decided to embark on a quest. That quest was the "Sucata Run" and it involved obtaining a vehicle worth no more than £250 and driving it to the most westerly point in Europe over the course of a weekend in August (all for charity of course).

sucata n. /SOO-CAH-TAH/ Portuguese; junk, rubbish, crap

This (first attempt at a) blog should hopefully document the trials and tribulations of the "Sultans of Bling"!