Mongol Rally Micra

[camhasnoname]

Here's something a little bit different!

You may have heard of the Mongol Rally; I know that a few PHers have done it over the years. It's a charity rally that runs from London, across Europe and Asia, through Mongolia and now finishes in Ulan-Ude, Siberia. We're aiming to do the ~10,000 miles in a little under six weeks. The rules about what car you can take? 1.0 litre and crap. Excellent

For many years (since way before I could drive!), me and a few friends have been enamoured with the idea of doing the rally. Over the years the various restrictions that came in made it less and less viable (cars under ten years being the biggest issue) but a year or two ago it devolved and they removed the age clause – result! I can't honestly remember how we ended up discussing the feasibility of doing it this year, but it was decided within minutes that we'd give it a go. After going in to our respective bosses' offices, mumbling a lot and staring at our shoes whilst making promises of love and overtime, we found ourselves slightly alarmed to be in the position of taking part in the Mongol Rally 2016 as team '101 Damn-Nations'...

[camhasnoname]

This is the beasty that we'll be spending our summer in. There was only ever one car choice, really; it had to be a Micra. We've all known each other since school (we're 22/23 now) and so spent a fair bit of time being turned pale in each other's first cars; team member Charlie's was an N-reg 1.0 litre Micra that survived an almost comical level of abuse without faltering. It held up surprisingly well when he crashed it, too. Finding this particular example was probably the most dodgy car-buying experience of my driving career so far - I managed to break pretty much every one of the rules that I generally follow, so I'll post about that next! Against the odds though, W472LCU seems to be alright! If a little cosy compared to what I'm used to:



I'll be keeping this thread focussed on the car – we've got a few bits that we're going to be doing to it. It's in reasonable condition; we did a basic service on it under the guidance of a friend who actually knew what he was doing. We've been advised to change the lower wishbones/track rod ends as they are corroded – still solid, but this will potentially be a ballache if we bugger up the tracking or bend it in some arse end of nowhere. Have the ballache now to potentially save having it in SomewhereStan, is the thinking behind this. We'll be doing a few decent road trips in it in the meantime though, which will hopefully flag up any issues!

The really fun part though, is how the car will look. In a move that we probably shouldn't have done, we have said that we will style the car like a dalmatian. It was originally more of a floating idea than anything else, but after the local paper ran with the headling “Team to travel to Siberia in a dalmatian” we've managed to somewhat box ourselves into a corner! We're still working on how exactly we are going to go about it whilst having it look half decent. The best thing to do is to start with a white car, but considering that this is our base there is a fairly obvious problem with that! All hints, tips, tricks very gratefully received on how to make the car white as cheaply as possible...

It would be awesome to hear from anyone who has done the rally before. Any advice at all really will be gratefully received as none of us have done anything like this before!

[camhasnoname]

Cheers for the responses - it's nice to see the love for the little Micras - and comforting that most of the stories seem to involve them being abused and taking it without fuss!

TooMany2cvs said:

C70R said:

Indeed. Cans of enamel spray paint (Hammerite by a different name) can be had for a couple of quid on EBay. A quick rough up with some sandpaper (and a wash), and you can just blow straight over without priming.

Even easier than that, though.

Less than a tenner for a litre of exterior gloss. Big brush. Job jobbed. Far less masking needed.

It's the sanding aspect that we're a bit apprehensive about; none of us have done anything like it before. Obviously it's not exactly got to be concours standard, but it would be nice if it at least lasted the duration of the rally! Is it worth getting an electric sander?

mattydoh said:

I did the rally (well, most of it - we rolled in Kyrgyzstan) last year in a Pug 205 called Daisy dressed up like a cow, not too far off a dalmatian colour scheme wise! We cheated and used a car that was already white and used some cheap black vinyl to give the spots. Worked really well and didn't peel off.

Advice wise, get your visas done ASAP - they are a gigantic pain in the behind and take way longer than websites say they will. What route are you taking? If you are taking a Southern Route, do the Pamir Highway - it's a lot of graft but very much worth it.

That sounds awesome - I can imagine the 205 would be a pretty solid choice for it. Don't know if I'd fancy rolling one though All okay I presume? Any pictures of Daisy?

We are doing the Southern route (albeit using the Caspian Sea ferry rather than going through Iran) and fully intend on doing the Pamir Highway! I must admit it's one of the elements of the journey that I'm both very nervous and very excited about. How long did that stretch take you guys?

[camhasnoname]

mattydoh said:

<snip>
2 (2) by matty_doh1, on Flickr


The Pamir took us about 5 days not pushing particularly hard as we wanted to spend some time there. That included taking the Wakhan Valley (again, recommended - the most beautiful place I've seen) as part of the main highway had been washed away. I wouldn't be nervous about it, everyone we met couldn't do enough to help us and there's a lot of Homestays on the way if you don't want to camp - it gets very cold on the higher stretches so warm sleeping bag recommended!

Just make sure you have some sump protection and keep an eye on your brake and fuel lines if they're under the car. The Corsa we were with was standard other than a sump guard and coped fine (well the roof rack fell off but they had too much crap anyway).

Awesome pictures, every time I see stuff like this from previous years' rallies I get excited We were mooting getting a drone ourselves as it goes. We'll see how we are for space! A lot of very useful information as well, so thank you. You mention sump guards, I'm guessing that's just a case of finding somebody who can fabricate one?

Usget said:

09 vet checking in.

6730_601698874084_61303202_37828807_8200485_n by Russell Gowers, on Flickr

That is awesome. What is it, a Metro?!

teambeer said:

Have fun! We did. Got about £1k sponsorship which covered the fuel bill, rest cost about £2k each (3 of us). Not bad for 16 countries and 5 weeks travelling. If possible go through Iran, amazing country. Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan also very interesting places in their own way.

I like the Fiesta! It's a shame that we're not doing Iran really; it was a bit of a time & cost trade-off, we're aiming for about 5 1/2 weeks, and decided that the Pamirs were a must-do. There seem to be quite a lot of teams doing it this year though.

[camhasnoname]

Also, with regard to the cost we're expecting about £2.5k-£3k each ourselves, which seems to fall in line with most people. A lot of it is spread out before the rally, for example visas and the car itself, so at least it's not all in one hit When you break it down and look at how long it's for, it's not too bad really

[camhasnoname]

grkify said:

love child of a jimny and a rialto nice was trying to work out what it was just couldnt place it.

My best guess is love child of a Panda and a Suzuki SJ?! Very curious!

[camhasnoname]

On Saturday we drove to Bristol to meet up with a bunch of other teams who either are doing the Rally this year, or have done it in previous years. It was a great night, although one that confirmed my long-held belief that vodka is not something that I should ever be allowed near - I managed to get myself run over, luckily no proper injuries but it certainly woke me up a bit

Some of the more left-field choices this year include a 1960 Singer and an East German van with a Trabant engine. Everybody there who had done it in a Micra last year stood by the choice which is good to hear

The round trip was about 330 miles, and apart from the passenger window runner making a break for the cabin the car did good! I'm guessing this should be a simple fix? The driver's window isn't too clever either and needs coaxing to get it up straight. Overall though, it's definitely loosening up for being driven a bit.


Iran was another point of conversation; echoing what some of you guys have already said, the teams who have done it previously all said that it was pretty much a must-do. Originally the idea of getting the ferry was partly to save time and money, but supposedly last year people ended up waiting for a week and having to pay only a couple of hundred dollars shy of what Iran would have cost, so we're going to swallow it and have a look whether or not we've left it too late to change.

eltax91 said:

Tour your local spray shops and see if one of them will spray it white and black spots since its for charity. You never know.

This gave me an idea, so thank you! I work for a bus company, and figured that I had nothing to lose by asking if they would do it. Waiting for a meeting to work out fitting it in around their other jobs but it sounds promising

Edited by camhasnoname on Monday 18th April 12:52

[camhasnoname]

fivetenben said:

Well if everyone else is posting up pics of their rally steeds...





Meet Daisy, my home for a month back in 2006. Trip report here: http://bencoombs.net/mongolrally_tripreport1.html

Good luck guys; I'll follow your progress with interest

I'm not sure how I missed this - great website I remember following your V8Nam trip on here at the time. I'd be surprised if there weren't any Minis doing the rally this year, but I do wonder whether the value of them going up has affected that? We'll see.

With the Micra, the company that I work for (bus company) are going to spray and spot it for us! We just need to do the sanding down, but we're pretty chuffed with that. I've just ordered a fitting kit for the roof rack, so that'll be made up next week as well

Next step, sump guard. Did people who have used them get off-the-shelf ones or fabricate one? I've tried looking for rally style ones but the cost is eye-watering

[camhasnoname]

We got the car back from Stagecoach. As we were walking around to where it was tucked away in the garage, the sprayers were sniggering. I think that they took the chance to do something other than 'bus red' and ran with it Exhibit A:






It got a few looks on the drive back, to say the least!

GC8 said:

Id suggest buying this and reading it quickly, then getting on with the essentials. Im reasonably familiar with competition preparation, but this book was a goldmine of information for me.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1845842081/ref...

Ordered that, thanks Next step is get commercial tyres for it - people have said they have thicker sidewalls? Problem being, they don't seem to do any in its size (165/60/14). Would 165/70/14 still be okay? I've never quite 'got' tyre sizing and what you can & can't get away with

[camhasnoname]

Usget said:

That is excellent but it's missing something crucial - a waggy tail on the rear wiper!

We were thinking about where to stick a tail Half a mind to make one out of the aerial as well.

And Neal, absolutely! I'm back in their depot in a week or two and that will be taken care of, we honestly didn't think it would come out anything like it did I'll have a look at that link, cheers!