What car for endurance road rallies, serious help needed.

Avionyx

Avionyx

Avionyx

Associate
Joined
16 Feb 2011
Posts
65
Location
Brighton
Ok Guys here's one I need help with.

I'm booked on a lot of endurance rallies this year and early next and I've split them up into two categories. The party rallies where its more of an "event" and those that are more serious, less publicised with the hardcore lets get from A-B without getting caught/killed type.

For the party rallies I have the car sorted as It's all about image and speed.

However I don't really want to take the same car on the serious endurance rallies as it needs to be more utilitarian, less shouty and easier to get parts for.

So I've given myself a budget of 28 - 35k max and I want a car thats able to cruise at 100 - 110 for long periods, and shoot up to 130-140 for periods too.

Must be good in the twisty stuff, comfortable and be reasonably easy to change the side of the road on the things that are likely to go, easy access to fuel, oil pumps and filters.

Will by carrying a crew of 3 and loads of parts/ equipment so that has to be kept in mind.

What's your suggestions?

Will be doing a build/prep update thread once the car is bought, which will hopefully be by the end of April as we need to do some workup runs.
 
There are no restrictions, its all private road rallies, people turn up in their every day cars (mainly M5's that sort of thing)
It is fast running so it will need to be able to cruise at 100-110, not kph, for periods of 1-2 hours.
Although fuel economy isn't a huge thing, it needs to be factored in, driver changes have to be every 4 hours for safety so everyone tends to top up then.
 
Merc 500 SEC? Covers ground quickly in comfort and parts should be available all over europe. I'd imagine you want to avoid modern stuff if you want to do road side repairs.

BTW, I'm not sure what sort of event this is but it doesn't sound like a road rally, or an endurance road rally.
 
What an odd thread...

I'd also like to point out that you don't need to spend anywhere near £35k to get a car happy to cruise at 110 and blast upto 140 occasionally, so you're probably going to want to include a bit more information as to what you need.
 
The events are simply private, non sponsored runs along the type that Alex Roy does with Team Polizei. Point to point runs of 30-40 hours, with a bit of a party, perhaps a few days holiday at the other end.

There's lots of them that go on, normally not very well publicised with a bit of a "Entry Fee" to keep out Gumball/Bullrun etc Wannabe's

The important thing is the car needs to be reliable, last year on 4 out of the 5 events I did 20% of the cars got taken out by things like Fuel Pumps failing, or burst hoses.

I simply want to be better prepared than all the other guys by thinking about the car a bit more than simply buying the standard M5 like everyone else seems to.

Reliability and Comfort are the big things. Its no good driving for 30 hours (even if you do change drivers every 4 hours) if the exhaust deafens you and you have to stop for fuel every 2 hours. Last year I used an Evo 8 and that simply wasn't fun after 2 days.
 
whitecrook said:
whats a 'party' rally?
Click to expand...

A Gumball type of rally? From a position of not knowing much about it the premise sounds a little bit less than legal - at 100-110mph regularly on private roads? I can't imagine there are that many private roads in Britain where you could do that sort of speed/distance for 4 hours anyway - but maybe on the continent...
 
Obviously those speeds are only attained where it is legal to do so.

As an example last year one of the events I went on we set off from Baker Street, London and finished In Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. 22 Hours 13 Minutes and 59 seconds was my official time, some managed it in less, some in more. We had a huge party at the Hotel, stayed there for 3 days recovering in the sand and then the same on the return run. I was held up by a blown radiator and ended up coming last with a time of 36 hours 45 minutes and 02 seconds.

Its great fun, a huge rush and just a good bunch of car-heads enjoying themselves. But to do it properly it has to be taken very seriously and planned well.

I can assure you driving an Evo on the Bulgarian roads wasn't fun, far too harsh.

Perhaps that helps you understand the task?
 
Private event on public roads I forsee the op waking up in a French jail with broken bones and a randy cell mate sometime soon

Range rover sport ?
 
Avionyx said:
Perhaps that helps you understand the task?
Click to expand...

The clarification does, I was reading it as private-road rallies i.e. rallies on private roads rather than private, road rallies i.e. an exclusive entry set.

This may well be a hopeless suggestion for any number of reasons but is an Audi RS4 in the right sort of region as fairly fast and comfortable? I don't know about the reliability or what it is like to drive.
 
Last edited:
I too was thinking RS4, but I have a friend who has a new one and it spends more time at the dealer than it does on the road. Are the Derv's any better at reliability.
I had a C63 previously and found that OK on reliability so perhaps a 2006 E55 could be a contender.

I was trying to get away from the M5 type of thing that everyone else seems to take, but perhaps its these cars used for a reason.

The 500SEC is by far the most interesting suggested so far, but would it do 4000 miles in a week, at high speed, and still hold together? I might see if there's an owners club who could help.

Any more suggestions welcome!

Alex
 
Sounds a lot like the student gum ball I did. Why does it have to be comfy. We did 3000 miles in a Westfield now that was fun!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom