NEWS

THERE’S good news and bad news on day two of Bangers4BEN. First the positive – we’ve made it to Maranello! Currently, I’m sat with the balcony doors open of our Maranello Palace room, which is just a stone’s throw away from the Ferrari factory, it’s 23 degrees and there are two plonkers lapping the roundabout [...]

WE’RE here finally in Maranello, the home of Ferrari, and it couldn’t have been easier. You’ll have already have seen in Baggott’s blog that we have experienced what Bangers4BEN is all about. Rob Brendon and Wags Firmin offered us the unblemished and brand-new looking rear seats of their surprisingly luxurious Hyundai XG30 so we could [...]

I’M sat at the side of a motorway, being battered by large lorries carrying bananas, and Baggott is pacing up and down. What has my life come to? This is day one of our four-day long excursion to the home of Ferrari all for the charity BEN in £500 bangers, and it hasn’t really begun [...]

BANGERS4BEN is now well under way – and we’ve got an incredible collection of cars. With 31 teams – including ourselves taking part – the trip from Dover to Maranello has already been an eventful one. For those not in the know, Bangers4BEN challenges teams to find a car for less than £500 and drive [...]

SO now you know – our Bangers4BEN car 2011 isn’t a car at all. It’s a boat. And a very big boat at that. This year we’ve carried on the military theme we started at last year’s Bangers4BEN rally and have created an homage to HMS Ark Royal. Being based in Gosport in a former [...]

BANGERS4BEN usually encourages some mad entries from people doing something special for charity. But we couldn’t have made up one team’s entry in Bangers4BEN 2011 – a newlywed couple! HPI’s operations director Andy Entwistle and his wife Toni Emmins-Entwistle are ditching the normal protocol of going somewhere sunny and hot for their honeymoon. Instead the [...]

THIS weekend sees 31 brave teams travelling more than 800 miles to the home of Ferrari to raise money for charity. We say brave because they will be getting to Maranello in cars that cost £500 or less – AND they have to get home again. Along the way there will be French motorways, Switzerland, [...]

THIS time next week 31 teams from various parts of the motor industry will be in the middle of a four day long trip to Italy. Everything from a Fiat Seicento to a Black Cab will be taking part in the marathon road-trip which sees competitors buying a car for £500 or less, driving to [...]

BCA has drawn up a top 10 list of the most unusual cars to have been sold in its auction rooms in 2010. The list ranges from a bizarre diesel powered road train to the sublime Bugatti Veyron. ‘This year’s big ticket items were a 2006 Bugatti Veyron, which went for £625,000 and a 2008 [...]

THIS week 11 of the cars that took part in Bangers4BEN 3 were sold at BCA Blackbushe – and here’s the video! The event in aid of motor industry charity BEN saw teams from all walks of the motor industry drive from Dover to Monaco and back. As well as raising sponsorship money the teams [...]

OUR Bangers4BEN auction has just taken place at BCA Blackbushe – and our cars made £5,350 for charity! The sale in the main Hall 1 of Blackbushe saw a throng of dealers battle it out for our cars. The only car that didn’t sell was Carlyle Finance’s Audi TT – it was bid up to [...]

PLACE your bids – because today is the day our Bangers4BEN cars go to auction! The sale takes place at around midday at BCA, Blackbushe, and is the grand finale of our epic trip to Monaco. The cars – all costing less than £500 – made the trip (some only just) and now they’ll be [...]

THIS week the Car Dealer team has been to Monaco and back in a £250 banger – and we made a Making Of video! You may have read about our plan to turn our car – kindly supplied by Auction4cars.com – into an SR71 Blackbird, but we thought it would be a good idea to [...]

THE long drive home from Monaco was never going to be the most exciting – but our Bangers4BEN teams still had a laugh. Days three and four of our run to the playground of the rich and famous saw our mad cars head back from Nice to Dijon on Tuesday, then Dijon back home on [...]

OUR intrepid Bangers4BEN travellers have made it to Monaco – and driven the GP circuit legends have raced! At around 4pm today, 20 bangers – all costing less than £500 – rolled into the glitzy gold-leaf lined (probably) streets of the principality. Car Dealer’s Project Stealth led the convoy to the sound of the Top [...]

BANGERS4BEN3 is off – and this year has some of the best and wackiest cars ever taking part in the rally! Our trip from Dover to Monaco and back in cars costing less than £500 in aid of motor industry charity BEN has really brought the motor trade out of their shell. We thought our [...]

OUR Project Stealth team have been on the road since 5am Wednesday on their round-the-UK trip to get our car ready for Bangers4BEN. Commercial manager Dunc and worky James Batchelor arrived in Scotland Wednesday afternoon at Carwrapz.biz’s Edinburgh base. The wrapping wizards worked on our 1.4-litre Honda Civic late into the evening on Wednesday and [...]

Project Stealth has begun – it’s our operation to turn a boring Honda Civic into an SR71 Blackbird for Bangers4BEN 3. We’ve dispatched commercial manager Duncan Chappell and worky James Batchelor to Scotland to get our car sorted. Here’s James’ account of day one… SO far on Project Stealth, Duncan and I have been awake [...]

INSURANCE is just a joke isn’t it? Why on earth they charge such ridiculous amounts for cover beggar’s belief. Rant time… I’ve just insured our Honda Civic bought for Bangers4BEN for the frankly ridiculous price of £621.47p. That’s more than double what we paid for it. We took out insurance with Admiral.com after searching the [...]

DO you fancy coming along on Bangers4BEN3? Well, you could be in luck. Due to some last minute drop outs we have got FOUR places to giveaway. That means all your accommodation, meals and ferry crossings will be paid for. You will need to find a car – up to the value of £500 which [...]