NEWS

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 [...]

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 [...]

THE Sytner Group has donated the use of an Audi A1 to the automotive industry charity BEN. The donation will enable Chris Brown, BEN’s regional development manager to visit companies all over the Midlands. This will ensure staff know about the support BEN can provide if they find themselves in need, increase awareness across the [...]

NATIONAL BEN Week will take place from July 18 to 24 to celebrate BEN’s 106th birthday. The week is one of the automotive industry charity’s biggest fundraisers and this year BEN is asking its supporters to raise £106 per company to support its work providing care, support and advice to the automotive family. The weel-long [...]

FORMER fleet cars flowed through Aston Barclay’s new auction centre, raising money for charity. Vendors and buyers alike experienced the efficiency now in place at the new state-of-the-art auction centre. Thanks to the newly created twin-laned auction rooms separated by sound-proofed glazing, designed to allow car buyers to effectively follow two sales simultaneously. The grand-opening [...]

THE BEN Scotland Ball has raised more than £13k for automotive industry charity, it has been announced. Held on March 5, 2011 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Glasgow, more than 200 guests enjoyed a four course meal with entertainment provided by Feeva and Special Edition – and in so doing raised the sum of [...]

THE majority of the top ten dealer groups are now taking part in Dealers Backing BEN, the automotive charity has announced. Dealers Backing BEN is the charity’s flagship sustainable income initiative. Sytner, Inchcape, Lookers, Jardine Motor Group, Ford Retail, Vertu and Marshall have all signed up and in addition more than 20 other major organisations [...]

This years Bangers4BEN adventure will see us visit the home of Ferrari! Only thing is you’ll have to do it in a car costing no more than £500. You up for it? Fancy visiting Ferrari? THE home of Ferrari. Maranello. A mecca for fans of the prancing horse the world over. Birthplace of the some [...]

The CLK has gone and we’ve invested our pot into the next step on our ladder First things first. We made a slight accounting error last month which I’ll blame on doing sums on deadline. Our current total doesn’t currently reside at £9,418, it’s in fact the slightly lower figure of £8,970. The cash counting [...]

MARTEC Europe is taking part in a half marathon to raise money for BEN and Diabetes UK and needs sponsorship. Martec is competing in the Water of Life Half Marathon on March 20. Their team of runners consist of Neil Pursell, Gavin Churchman and Patrick White. The company is hping to raise at least £500 for BEN [...]

AUTOTORQ.com’s Christmas competition managed to net £500 for the automotive charity BEN. The automotive marketing providers raised the sum through an online Christmas competition using its latest web technology. More than 1,700 people the Christmas calendar competition – a figure reached largely due to individuals spreading the word on social media. autotorq.com’s managing director, Paul [...]

THE 76th annual BEN Ball saw £260k raised for the automotive industry charity. The night saw over a thousand industry leaders and guests dig deep for their industry charity; raising the highest amount for four years. BEN’s chief executive, David Main, said: ‘Every aspect of this year’s ball has been incredible. We’ve seen the number [...]

AUTOTORQ.com has launched a special festive competition to raise money for the automotive charity BEN. The automotive marketing provider has decided to launch a competition instead of sending out traditional Christmas cards, and some special prizes are up for grabs. They include an Apple iPad, two iPod Shuffles, 24 Top Gear ‘Apocalypse’ DVDs, and a [...]

SOME good news at long last – our second Mazda MX-5 has finally found a new home selling for £1,120! We listed it with a starting price of £495 on eBay – lowered from £995 after the initial auction failed to find it a buyer two weeks ago. We were rather worried it wasn’t going [...]

AUTOMOTIVE charity BEN has announced two new firms eager to support the charity’s dealer scheme. Industry giants PSA Retail and Vertu have agreed to join the charity’s Dealers Backing BEN scheme, helping the charity’s work supporting more than 15,000 automotive industry workers to continue. Along with Synter, Ford Retail, Marshall, Lookers and Pentagon, PSA Retail [...]

BEN is to benefit from a charity bike ride between Luton and Frankfurt that hopes to raise more than £5k. The big ride to the Automechanika by two Comline men gets under way next month. Malcolm Rosher and Jonathan Ward from the firm reckon it will take them 5 days, and will take them across [...]

ACF Car Finance is the latest big firm to sign up for the Dealers Backing BEN charity fundraiser scheme. Already a strong BEN supporter, the sub-prime car dealer will now further formalise donations to BEN under the scheme. ACF’s Norman Beaumont said the simplicity of the scheme was a key reason why he’d signed up. [...]

DEALERS Backing BEN continues to grow with Ford Retail the latest car dealer group to sign up. Ford Retail follows Lookers and Sytner in pledging support for the industry charity. Chris Hayden, chairman and CEO of Ford Retail Group, said: ‘Although we are already keen supporters of BEN this is a very well structured fundraising [...]