In the meantime, I’ve given the new wheels (kindly donated by W124 Works) a good scrub, fitted some roof bars, changed the spark plugs, got the various filters I plan on changing and generally fiddled.

I eventually bought a roof rack on eBay – but it’s designed for a Vauxhall tinythingabob, so it clearly didn’t fit the roof bars on the merc. So, out of frustration, over the weekend I dug the grinding disk, welding machine and OA torch out of the garage. I then butchered an old Ikea bookshelf, which was made of 30mm steel tubes and with some fussing (i.e. random banging on things with a hammer) fashioned a roof rack.

It almost holds my weight too!

I tested it up to 60mph, and it seemed to hold… next test is will it fall off at 90mph with a human specimen hanging on for his life on top! If that test is passed, I’ll need to strap a sofa to it for the “pilots seat”! If it doesn’t… hmm, I guess I’ll just superglue the sofa to the roof or something… (duct tape?)

I’ve decided to bring the waffle boards from the Shogun, which although heavy are fantastic bits of kit. Now I need to figure out where to mount them to streamline the car (cough cough).

Last bits of stickers are coming from Gavin @ Gavin’s Graphix soon, these will replace the official stickers and be the finishing touches to the vinyls!

Is anyone willing to donate a Pay&Play track day? Would love to test the car on the track (just kidding… if you do want to donate though, please do so! The money will go towards pens, books or some gear in some mud-walled school in Africa!).

One last point, I’ve finally uploaded some proper pictures to the site – both of the team and of the car. Please do have a look (click on “The Team” and “The Car” on the right hand side menu).

Anyhow, this is a short and sweet update… so Michele out!

Michele

P.S. does anyone know anything about tupes?

So, over the weekend we had the launch party, which was great fun. Apart from almost burning a car down, burning a tyre, spilling more wine that is healthy and constantly going from freezing cold to boiling hot it was b usiness as normal really!  Pictures below….

We also got to Land’s End, which was rainy and extremely windy; but fun none-the-less…  and I must say, the Bacon & Egg roll on Bodmin Moor was absolutely fantastic! I want another!

I’m afraid I’m not going to type much, and let you enjoy the pictures instead… that said, to those people I did meet at the Launch Party – I’m afraid I put my trousers in the washing machine… including the paper with all your contact details! Drop me an email when you get a chance!

M.

On Friday, I drove into London and picked up some roof bars from a fellow mbclub.co.uk member. Sadly, the roof rack from the Shogon wont fit, so now I’m looking for a new one… preferrably something I can fit some lights too!

While driving my cousin around Northern England, we stopped by Ian’s place at W124 works. I must say I was very impressed! Aside from being the kindest person on the planet (we arrived at 4:00-something, just as the England match was about to finish…) and giving us 5 wheels & tyres for the rally, I was truly impressed by the vehicles he was working on. The E320 (pillarless coupe) with the retrofitted twin turbo & split second controls was just… well… Ian felt that ”it doesn’t sound to agressive”; while I was wondering if it’s possible to marry a car… I know in some cultures you can marry dogs, cats and other pets…

As I was away for the weekend, I wasn’t able to do much on the car itself though. When I got back late Sunday night, I found a large box filled with vinyls waiting for me from Gavin’s Graphix. Let me take a moment to say that I was really, really impressed by the speed with which he cut them! Anyhow, on Monday I went ahead and with my cousin’s help, we fitted all the decals in no time. The car really turns heads now, and while waiting at the traffic light I did notice the people in the cars on both sides staring at us! It’s not subtle, but it does get the message across.

Next the spark plugs arrived, and now I’m looking for a viscous coupling and a set of electric fans to fit in front (i.e. the car WILL be cooler than a penguin… or at least the engine bay given that the interior has no a/c). Still need the various filters, fuses and belts… (oh and fluids) but all that will probably happen after the launch party!

Have a great week, (even though it’s not Monday)
M.

P.S. I will get pictures of the car up ASAP; don’t worry!

You can find a copy of the flyers here, but watch out… they’re 20mb in size! We’ve been using the scores from the World Cup in the hope that people don’t ditch the flyers right away. On one side I made a little scoresheet for the world cup (something that can be hung on a wall… sort of) while on the other side there is our blurb about TeamBookTwo and The Timbuktu Challenge.

A teaser if you want to see what they look like without downloading the high res print version:

In case you are wondering why there are two “backs” it’s quite simple. If the house we were distributing to had an England flag on their car, window or anywhere else…. they would get an England version. If not, they would get a neutral version We try to make everyone happy!

On that line – if you’ve received a flyer and are now reading this – I would LOVE to hear from you! It would have made listening to Jacob complaining for an hour worth it! The entire time we distributed the flyers, he complained… and didn’t hand out a single flyer! So; please, if you’ve gotten a flyer and you thought “let’s see what it’s about”, please do leave a comment! (or drop me an email on the contact us page).

As an incentive, I’ll drop an A3 version of the World Cup standings by your house if you got one of my A4 versions and came here! (Just leave a comment and I’ll contact you on the email address listed with the comment to sort out giving you the flyer).

Anyhow, back to the sponsors. W124 Works was kind enough to donate 4 wheels & tyres, which we will be collecting next weekend. Gavin’s Graphix was kind enough to do all the vinyl’s for the car; which I’ll put pictures of as soon as the vinyls arrive and go on.  Please do take a minute to visit both sites, even if you don’t drive a W124, keep W124 works in mind. Similarly, if you need Graphics for your car, van or truck, drop Gavin’s Graphix a line!

From a preparation point of view, the car’s paint is now finished… I’m tempted to fiddle with the paint on the wheel arches and maybe on one of the doors… but otherwise the paint is done! Only vinyl’s now! From a mecchanical perspective, I want to change the fuel filter, oil filter, air filter, pollen filter, (along with any associated fluids), spark plugs & leads and generally have a good rummage around the engine bay before we leave!

The launch is in 2 weeks… so we’re calling it close with the decorations!

From a “news” point of view, we’ve had interest from a few magazines: Mercedes Owner, Total Off Road, Pentax User and Mensa Travel SIG… if you’re an editor and are interested in running an article, get in touch and we’ll be happy to accomodate!

I think that’s it for this week’s update; and I do realise that I’m breaking my usual trend of scheduling the update for Monday morning… but I’m watching the Brazil game and cheering Cote d’Ivoire on!

M.

So far, I’ve got one side of the “tube map” complete (albeit with a touchup needed), both sides of the earth complete (albeit with 2 touch-ups needed and an outline), and the first three sponsor decals on the car (Goodridge, TopS design and colorburst.it - all of which we are eternally grateful to!). A few more are still to come (ASC Printing, and maybe a vinyl cutting company – watch this space!). Also on the car is a sticker for mbclub.co.uk; a forum with more friendly and helpful people than you’ll ever immagine!

A sneak picture below… again taken on my phone while we were working on the car… I’ll upload proper pictures once it’s complete!

One last point – if you are thinking of sponsoring us, NOW is the best time! At the moment we are open to companies that contact us, (with a limited release to companies that sponsored us before). After July 3rd we will be releasing and contacting general sponsors.

We already have an article secured with Pentax Magazine, and will be contacting  Mensa’s SIG magazines, Mercedes Enthusiast and a few offroad magazines hoping to get a slot. Obviously, if your stickers are on the car, they will be in the pictures!

M.

A funny thing happened today on my way to work… while stuck in traffic on the M3, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a guy in a black Alfa staring at my car. Now, the car isn’t particularly inconspicuous, and it does get a few looks and fingers pointed at it, but he was persistent. 

He then honks his horn to get my attention, so I duly roll down my window; at which point he shouts “Are you driving to Bamako?” (cue me realizing that I still have the Bamako Run 2010 sticker on the side of the car I didn’t need to replace) and shout (all while crawling in traffic) “Yes, we tried last year and will go again this year”. 

At this point, his jaw drops, and once he recovered he manages to shout over “REALLY? In THAT?” After a few more affirmations, he seems impressed and asks me for a URL on where to sign up. I did dig around for a card, but couldn’t find one before the cars behind started getting frustrated with our chat on the M3.

So, to the mystery man in the black Alfa, I wish you all the luck I can in finding the website – and may we meet again! If you are reading this, the congratulations on finding the site!

On my side, I think it’s time to get our URL on the car (as well as the sponsor decals), apparently people are noticing it :p

M.

So it’s been a while, there’s been a LOT of new events and the site has been revamped! Over the weekend, I also imported the old mailing list and integrated it into the new mailing list & website.

The new site can be found at:
http://www.TeamBookTwo.com/
as always.

The news is now in blog format; and you should be able to navigate the site fairly easily (I hope).

Looking at the right hand column, under Navigation there are the various areas of the website. Recent posts contains the latest news (also found under “All Blog Posts”. Additionally, the news is sorted by category and date as well. I would strongly recomend you read the post titled “The Saga Continues” (http://www.teambooktwo.com/?p=24) it provides a pretty good summary of the highs and the lows…

If you have an RSS reader, the RSS2 feed is found here:
http://www.teambooktwo.com/?feed=rss2

Another new feature is that we now have a twitter account; follow us to be kept up to date on not just the site information, but live news from the field:
http://twitter.com/teambooktwo/

Given all these changes, I had to go with a totally different mailing list manager. As such, this was going to be the last post going out through DadaMail… Unfortunately, DadaMail didn’t like the new site and refused to co-operate; so this post is going out the shiny new way! To simplify your life, I have imported the database into the new mailing list; so you are automatically subscribed to the new one. If you wish to unsubscribe from the new one, pop your email address in here:
http://www.teambooktwo.com/?page_id=110

Papu – Over and Out!

Sorry about the poor picture quality, these were taken in adverse lighting on my mobile, so they aren’t the best…

Needless to say, the decorations are nowhere near finished… this is just the first coat of the first decoration… We’re starting to look for corporate sponsors, so get in early and secure a prominent position for your logo on the car!

Still to come, the tube map, the sponsor logos, the flags and the names! 

To save time, I ended up using WordPress as my CMS, and modified a template I found floating about without an owner… some minor tweaking to get it to work with WP2.9 and it doesn’t seem too bad (compare it to www.europoli.org/teambooktwo/ the old site it replaces)

What do you think?

M.

Now I need to figure out a way to save the old and use the new instead…. without manually updating all the links!