Back in the garage

Well JZ Machtech are having her back for a while now. She needs the gearbox checking, and loads of new suspension parts.. The fuel pump replacing, new clutch, oil seals replaced, the list is never ending! After a stint at JZM, we'll drive her back up to Mark at RS911 to finish the conversion job off. He's going to fit the correct exhaust, the chrome around the windows, chrome door handles, and I'm having a steel bonnet (the fibre glass bonnet doesn't fit) with four spotlights fitted! I popped in the Steve Wong performance chip at the weekend, so I'll see what it's done to decrease my 0-60 at 7:30am on the North Circular tomorrow!

Vid at start line

This is a vid I took from the start line. The original Mustang next to the Lambo was probably the most valuable car there... Notice on the other side the SCREEM guys being served Champagne by a midget - class!

Long trip back through Germany

After all the hoo-ha about going through Germany, we decided to cut through there to quicken the journey back. Some people had been held up at the German and Italian borders (Rani got held up by gun point! Har har!!) even though it was a day or two since the end of the rally. We had no problems at all though (other than mechanical issues), and surprisingly the Germans loved it! They were taking pictures of it and giving us thumbs up all the way to France.

The Final Day..

The drive down to Croatia was good fun, even in a hire car. As Gary said to us on the phone "Don't go too fast Ash, you know how precious hire cars are" - ho ho ho!! We managed to get south in no time at all, even beating an Aston Martin from the border to the finish line! The finish line and final party were great fun, and we made it through to 6:30am the next morning. I decided it might be a good time to hit the sack when Helen started inviting the Cannonball crowd up to our room to raid the mini bar. We had a lovely big lunch the next day with a bunch of the guys - really nice food, drink and fabulous company. I know it's a cliché, but it's the people that make the Cannonball 8000 what it is.

Second Day

Germany had told the Cannonball crew that they would impound any Cannonball car coming through their fine country. The Cannonball team only told us this after we'd been drinking, so standing up and leaving there and then at 11pm was out of the question. Instead we went to bed and got up at 2:30am to drive 1000 miles round the long way.. Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic! It was all a bit too much for the old girl and we suffered alternator problems in Austria - a shame really as we'd come so far. We wave off Gary and Ian who we'd been following for 500 odd miles and started making frantic phone calls to arrange a garage and a hire car.

Steves Viper

I love Steve and Sarahs Dodge Viper. Across the top of the windscreen it says 'Don't mention the war!' - class.

First day is great fun, then POW!

We got off to a good start, leaving Earls Court straight into the traffic and heading slowly down to the south coast. As we were burning round the M25, we saw the Ferrari girls waving like mad (they are mad) at us and driving off at silly speed in the wrong direction on the M25. We also saw a couple of cars being nicked for speeding - two Porsches caught by a police Volvo.. Ho ho!! We got to Brussels OK and Helen got interviewed. 20 mins later we were in the bar getting drunk. 3 hours later Conrad dropped the bombshell - we couldn't drive through Germany!

We're at the start line..

Near the front, but squashed between a Range Rover and a big Corona truck. There's an orange lambo next to us that's attracting more wasps than our car. Wasps are so fickle. The Spearmint Rhino girls keep jumping on peoples bonnets.. If they do it to our car, they'll fall straight through the fibre glass bonnet onto our luggage, so I'm keeping guard.

Woohoo! Last minute fix!

We got the train back to Chiswick and started prepping helens Boxster to take when we got a call from the Porsche garage - they'd got the car working again!! It was the short shift gear kit after all (nice one Mr AA guy). We dived into the rush hour M25 traffic and picked it up about 6pm. Excellent, so now we've just got to get home, put the stickers on, install the stereo, pack our clothes etc etc. Don't think we'll make it to the launch party tonight.. :(

Not the best start...

Well that didn't go quite as planned.. After visiting the garage in the morning to sort out the clonking noise coming from the engine bay, we drove to Pinner to pick up a new stereo. Everything was going well and then, pow, the gearbox is stuck in reverse. The AA guy spent ages on it and said the gearbox was knackered. We got it on the back of a truck (hours later) and got it back to the garage. I know what you're thinking: "how could anyone have this much bad luck?"... Well when it comes to cars, to us it comes naturally!

Half stickered up

I picked Lula up from JZ Machtech on Friday. She feels much tighter now she's been lowered and the sport shocks installed. It wasn't cheap though, and right now it just feels like we're pouring money we don't have into a car that's over 20 years old and could blow up in Kent for all we know! Only half the stickers have come through so far, which is really annoying because we wanted to get them all on there during the weekend . Also, there's a 'clonking' noise coming from the rear which is very worrying. I've got to take her back to JZM on Thursday to have them check it. We're off on the 2007 Cannonball 8000 rally this Friday, so we don't have any time for mechanical problems!

Mark demos the exhaust!

Picked her up at last! woohoo!!

We got up at 4:30am on Saturday morning to get a series of trains up to Wales to pick 'Lula' up. Mark has done us proud with a car that has people doing double takes in the street. Honestly, kids jump up and down pointing at it, blokes smile in appreciation, and women usually give us an almightily dirty look. If you could hear it you'd know why - it's exceptionally loud… Even when ticking over on idle it sounds like a spitfire! It's AWESOME!! We love it! We're certainly going to make an impression on the start line of the Cannonball 8000 rally! There are a few small bits that need to be sorted, the exhaust is one of them. It's a racing system at the moment that sounds like a dragster and spits out fire! As brilliant as it is, it's not really suitable for London so we'll get a new one at some point. Anyway, here are the pics!