Our Story

THE STORY OF THE BAND OF BODGERS TRIP TO BARCELONA

An Introduction to Barcelona Bangers Rally 2008
Barcelona Bangers is a Rally with a difference. After driving from Glasgow to the south coast of England and taking an early ferry to France. We will be driving from Calais, down through central France and on to historical Lyon, then OVER the French Alps and on to fashionable Nice on the French Riviera, on the final day we drive along the south of France and into Spain where we drive along the Spanish Mediterranean coast and on to Barcelona on the Costa Dorada. To do this trip in 3 days is a challenge in itself however a condition of the rally is that the car must cost less than £200!

The beginning

This whole idea started when Alan (30 of Glasgow) saw an advert for a place on the 2008 Barcelona Bangers Rally, after speaking to me, David (21 of East Kilbride) both agreed that it would be a great idea to take part. So, there and then we signed up for the rally, paid the entrance fee and starting looking for 2 more team members.
In the weeks that followed, my brother Richard (19 of East Kilbride) and friend Brian (26 of Kilwinning) were eventually persuaded into joining us for the trip. At our first meeting we decided to do the rally to raise money for 2 very worthwhile charities, Cancer Research UK and Care Of Police Survivors.

COPS is dedicated to helping surviving families rebuild their lives after the trauma of a line of duty death of a Police Officer. It aims to provide the survivors with all the help they need to cope with such a tragedy by survivors helping survivors.

Cancer Research UK is the world's leading independent organisation dedicated to cancer research. We support research into all aspects of cancer through the work of more than 4,250 scientists, doctors and nurses. Over the past 10 years alone, thousands of lives have been saved through earlier detection and improved treatments. But, much work remains to be done if we are to achieve our aim of beating cancer.

Initial preparations

And so our team was born! The next thing we had to do was decide on a team name and theme. After discussing loads of ideas, pirates, cops and robbers, cowboys, and loads of others we decided on “Band ofBodgers” and an army theme.
We also had to find a car worth less than £200. In a fortunate/unfortunate twist of fate, Richard had an old Volkswagen Passat Estate that was ready to go to the scrapheap after 15 years of hard work.
The car was a 1993 Volkswagen Passat estate, its diesel engine had covered over 175,000 miles with no major work or parts replaced. The bodywork was covered in dents, dings, scrapes and scratches. The wheels were now oval having hit 15 years worth of potholes and kerbsides. All in all, it was more than ready for the scrapheap!

Luckily Richard is a mechanic for Volvo Truck and Bus, Blantyre and brought with him some mechanical knowledge! After checking the car over he said that the engine and gearbox were in excellent condition and everything else was, well, very poor! The power steering didn’t work which meant every turn of the wheel required Popeye like strength. The radio didn’t work, the rear wiper didn’t work, heater only worked on one setting (roasting), Alternator and battery was “iffy”, all engine mounts were corroded extensively, suspension was extremely worn which meant any passengers in the back felt like they were riding along on a go kart!

And these were just the main problems.

In the weeks that followed we got help from Michael, the owner of Drive Motors, Main Street in Blantyre. Michael managed to fix and replace our broken engine mounts as well as giving the car a much needed timing belt change. We would like to thank Drive Motors for their support for our trip!

We, the bodgers, tried to fix all our other niggles but unfortunately failed on all of them! We did manage to fix the power steering however it was intermittent meaning it would start and stop at random. Never good when trying to drive around a busy roundabout or change lanes on a motorway. From trying to haul the wheel round to change lanes, suddenly the power steering would kick in and you would end up veering across 2 or 3 lanes! Not ideal!

Decorating the car

After giving up on fixing our mechanical problems we decided to start on the bodywork. The car was already sporting a very unusual hi visibility orange and green combo . This was a result of an earlier idea by Richard and a friend before the bodgers got the car.
So David headed off to the local hardware store. Our shopping list consisted of
Sanding Blocks, Black Spray Paint, Black metal fence paint, green metal paint, radiator paint rollers and masking tape.

After a day’s hard work, Betsy as she was now named was redone in a very nice green and black
camouflage design.

In the next few weeks Brian started our fundraising website, www.bandofbodgers.co.uk this allowed people to start donating to our charities. We then put up posters advertising the event at our workplaces and handing round sponsor forms. Brian even managed a fundraising day at his office. The money started flooding in.

We took the car to the Strathclyde Police Recreation Association fun day at Pollok Park in Glasgow. Although the day started wet and windy it turned into a sunny summer’s afternoon and was well attended. Our Car, “Betsy” got loads of attention and we raised more money for our causes. An excellent day.

The roof

About 3 weeks before we were due to leave in July we decided to have a final meeting to discuss final preparations and make sure everything was organised. After we finished out discussions the 4 of us went outside to have a look over Betsy and make sure she was ready to go. We added some camouflage netting and that’s it, she was ready! But....
When we first decided to do the rally we joked about having a car with a sunroof or hole we could use to get a true tank look. A few hours and a grinder later...

Finally, Betsy was ready for her last ever drive!

The Journey

The journey started from East Kilbride on the evening of Thursday the 17th of July 2008. Within 5 minutes of leaving we had a problem. There was a horrible knocking and scraping sound coming from the back end of the car. We had a dilemma. Do we stop and look at it to find out what it was, fix it and possibly waste much needed time or do we chance it, ignore the noise and drive on. Since we had to be in Dover for 04:00 on Friday we made a team decision. Drive on!

As you can imagine the noise didn’t go away and as we crossed the border into England it was joined by a second niggle, smoke from the bonnet! As we were near our first motorway stop we drove on and stopped at the next services. A quick check revealed that the knock was coming from the exhaust and was caused by having 4 men and loads of luggage weighing the car down too much. The smoke which had now stopped was caused by some of our camouflage netting being burned by the heat coming from the engine bay!

And so we drove on. A few hours later and the boredom had set in. We had brought with us on the trip 4 high pressure water guns to be used later on the trip but these were already full of water, just in case they were needed for whatever reason. I decided to squirt Brian on the neck, just to cool him down of course.... soon all of us were at it, 4 guns blazing and all of us soaked!
Finally after many hours we arrived in Dover, just 15 minutes before the check in cut off. Not bad considering we had to drive 487 Miles!

After a quick ferry crossing we arrived in Calais. As none of the team had ever driven on the continent before no one wanted to be first. Finally I was bullied into driving first. From Calais ferry terminal we had to find the rally start point which was a hotel located around about 10 minutes away. It took us nearly an hour but we got there eventually. After a quick change into our camouflage gear we joined the rest of the teams in the car park. Most people were dressed up which drew some very strange looks from the locals who thought we were all mad!

After a quick meeting with the rally organiser we got on board our cars and headed on our way to Lyon.
The majority of the driving on the first day was on the motorway but occasionally we had to pass through small towns and villages. As a team we had agreed not to use Sat-Nav but rely on an old fashioned map and some luck. As you can imagine we did get lost a few times (trying to leave Calais was the first time!) and as we spoke only very basic French we remained lost until we found a local who could speak a little English. We must remember to bring a phrase book next time.

During this part of the journey we had to pass through Paris. What a crazy road system they have there! Although there was only 2 lanes, it seemed that there was an unofficial motorcycle lane between the 2. A motorbikes passed at 50mph inches from our windows we sat fingers crossed hoping we would survive the city unscathed. Our luck seemed to be remaining as we got out of Paris and down to Lyon without any car problems or accidents!

The same can’t be said for the BMW in our photo gallery which sustained extensive damage after a nudge from another team on the motorway!

After driving around Lyon for what seemed like an eternity, we eventually arrived at our hotel. After parking the car and taking our luggage to the hotel we headed out into the city for a quick bite to eat. We found a lovely little Italian restaurant and sat down browsing the menu which was in French only. The food was excellent and the service great, all except for our drinks order. Alan and Brian had asked for 2 glasses of Nastro Azzuro (brand of beer), Richard and me simply asked for 2 pints of beer. 2 minutes later the waitress arrives with 2 pints of beer for Richard and me and 2 small glasses containing something which smelled like pure alcohol! It turns out the waitress had misheard and brought 2 glasses of super strength liqueur Ouzo! After some screwing up of faces and coughing and spluttering the Ouzo was drunk. As you might expect the next round asked for was 4 beers!

After dinner we had a quick walk around the city and took a few photos of the sights. Knowing we had another hard day tomorrow we headed back to the hotel.

DAY 2

The next day was from Lyon to Nice. As we arrived at the day 2 meeting point we saw several of the other cars had acquired some dents, spraypaint and even smashed windscreens overnight. We were glad that we had parked miles away and our car was totally unscathed as shown below.
However, our water guns were still half full and after spraying another team for a bit of fun we were rammed and then had our windscreen smashed! Don’t worry though, we kept spraying the driver ‘s face as he rammed us. He was not pleased! Eventually he had had enough and was absolutely soaked. He backed down and drove off!
Bodgers 1, other team nil!
But, we had sustained some damage.

Today, like yesterday the driving was mainly motorways and most of these had dreaded tollbooths every 50 miles or so. As the miles started mounting our wallets started emptying, we grew to hate these toll roads as the trip went on. We arrived in Nice without much trouble and eventually found our hotel.

The hotel in Nice had a multi-storey car park and almost all the teams had parked their cars inside it. The next morning several cars were missing wing mirrors, aerials, windscreen wipers, door handles and for one unfortunate team all four wheels! Betsy however survived the night with no damage whatsoever! Our plan to get up early and paint a rival team’s windscreen with black paint failed due to the fact we had all been out enjoying ourselves a bit much and had slept in!

Day 3

Day 3 was our final day and we had to get from Nice to Barcelona. Again we had lots of Toll roads but we also had some spectacular roads as we crossed the French Alps.
The hole in the roof was a great benefit for day 3 as the sun was shining and the heat inside the car almost unbearable. As we left France we were getting close to 30 degrees!

And then, as we crossed the border into Spain we hit our biggest problem so far. The Spanish Police.

As we crossed the border almost every team was stopped by the police and various fines were handed out. Fines were given out for everything from not having a hi visibility jacket in the car to having a wooden spoiler. It didn’t look good for us as the police started looking over our car and smirking. We had a smashed windscreen, a hole in the roof, camo netting all over the car and 4 water guns in the back seat. Luckily we had all our safety equipment, bulbs and documents. We couldn’t believe it when we were allowed on our way with just a warning!

A quick drive along the motorway and we had made it, we had arrived in Barcelona. We were absolutely ecstatic. Hundreds of miles in intense heat, trying to see through our damaged windscreen and cope with everything the trip threw at us. We had done it and earned our sponsored cash! Although we were tired, hungry and glad to be finished, we were extremely proud to have completed the trip and raised so much for our charities. A great sense of achievement was felt by all of us. Our car had been fantastic and a true testament to Volkswagen’s build quality, unfortunately she couldn’t come back to the UK with us and she was parked at our hotel ready for her trip to the scrap yard in the morning.

We headed out to our day 3 meeting place at the Irish Rock Bar and after a quick dinner were presented with our certificates and medals by the organisers! We met all the other teams and heard all the stories of the trip some were funny, some dangerous and others just mad. We talked, laughed and partied well into Monday morning, every team was glad to have finally finished the trip.

The next day we packed our bags and headed to the local scrap yard where Betsy was to live out the last years of her life. After finally convincing the scrap yard to take our car we headed off to the main bus station and split up. Alan and Brian headed for the airport and home to the UK, Richard and I travelled north to meet up with our family who we were joining on holiday.
All in the entire trip was excellent! Although it wasn’t easy or comfortable, we were all glad to have done it and enjoyed every minute of it. We raised over £3000 for Cancer Research and Care Of Police Survivors and money is still coming in.

Thanks to everyone who sponsored us for the rally and thanks to everyone who helped us out with the car and our preparations.

We might even do it again next year!

On behalf of all the team, All the best and thanks again

Davie