The car -a work in progress

Day -4 - 14 August 2008 - 8.15pm

Work begins on the car with only 24 hours to go before we set off. We cover everything important (windscreens, lights, mirrors) with paper and get to work changing the colour to gunmetal grey ...

It begins to get very difficult to see in the gloom - is it grey yet?
The old badges, surgically removed.

Light fails in 9pm. It still looks a bit red by torchlight. I am reminded of Adrian Mole's first diary when he painted his room gothic black, but the Noddy bells still showed through .... plus, we have run out of paint. We'll get more tomorrow, perhaps ... our ferry leaves at 2345

The car - a Mazda MX6

We bought car car in early July 2007. The rules prescribe that the car must cost no more than £100, exclusive of tax and repairs. The car must also be older than an 'M' registration mark.

We found the car in Abbeywood, southeast London. We paid £100 for the car, £40 for the remaining tax and £40 for the radio, with a small fee to our creative accountant. The car came without MOT, and scraped through for £90 in July. We have also purchased a new distributor which cost £130.

The car, a Mazda MX6, drives pretty well - very good acceleration - but tends to pull a bit in lower gears. There is also a rather worrying rattle coming from astern - let's hope she holds.

Soon, the Mazda will be debadged and converted into a rough approximation of an Aston Martin DB9. Sort of. Well, we've got some Aston Martin badges, anyway ...