2:08 am, September 3, 2010
IN the words of a cigar-chomping A-teamer – don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?
Well, I may of course be jumping the gun, but after two days of frantic phone calls and emails our plan to transform our hippy-coloured Honda Civic into something far cooler certainly does seem to be getting that way.
So what are we going to do with it? Well, you may be wondering why you’re looking at Blackbird, the SR-71. Well, that’s because it’s the inspiration for our design of our Bangers4BEN car.
Don’t ask us why – there is no other reason other reason than we’re blokes. And blokes like cars. And fast planes. And matt black. So matt black planes that go fast are the ultimate attraction.
It doesn’t mean we’ll be travelling at the speed of sound – unless of course, Dunc is driving – but hopefully we do go under the (speed) radar of French plod.
It does also means we can dress up like fighter pilots for the event and considering we’re going to Moanco it may help us blag our way into the casino. Or maybe not, but it will at least look rather funny on the Autoroutes.
So how do we plan on making our banger look like Blackbird? Well, that of course requires a matt black paint job. As we have to sell this car at a BCA auction after the rally – that’s how we raise the money in Bangers4BEN – it needs to be carried out in a way that’s reversible, so we’re planning on vinyl wrapping it.
Thanks to saint David Daniels, editor of Track and Road Mag and friends at PermaClear, we’ve manged to secure the services of CarWrapz.biz – a very talented wrapping company. The only problem? They’re based in Scotland…
That means our man Duncan will be embarking on a little road trip next week to get the car to them – I can’t as it’s out deadline week. He’s understandably ‘ecstatic’.
Soon to be rid of it's hippy turquoise
DECALS
We’ll also be adding some USAF stickers and decals – again thanks to David who’s manged to pursaude Vehiclegraphix.co.uk to produce the decals for us FOC.
Dunc will then be visting Pentagon London to have the rear windows blackened and the front windows slightly tinted to give it an even darker look. Again, these guys are doing it for free as it’s all for charidee!
But that’s not all – our friends at Halfords have also said they’ll take out the tape playing radio and replace it with something more modern – which won’t be hard.
They’ve also said we can ‘trolley dash’ one of their stores for some more aftermarket accessories. We’re planning on some big blue lights for the undercarriage, exhaust trim and some other lighting to make it stand out. Plus some creature comforts to make the 1,700-mile drive a bit more enjoyable.
We’ve always wanted to pimp a ride and this year’s Bangers4BEN event has given us the perfect excuse!
We’ll keep you posted on the transformation of our Honda – sourced from Auction4Cars.com – as it takes place next week. Now we just need to decide whether to spray the wheels black too… but that would mean getting our hands dirty.
‘Car Dealer Crew you’re cleared for take off, entering French airspace in t-minus nine days and counting…’
James
