Carbagerun 2016, winter edition

"duurtlang" (duurtlang)
04/10/2016 at 11:21 • Filed to: carbagerun, carbagerun 2016

My Carbagerun report, the 8-country winter rally with €500 bangers, has finally been finished. I had all the chapters saved as drafts, and have now publicly posted them in my own blog. They’ll be posted on oppo, one a day, starting tomorrow. Links below.

All my pictures were taken by a Sony Alpha ILCE-5000 with a 5456x3064 resolution, all uploaded unedited and fully zoomable as long as you know your way with Kinja. The panorama pictures are obviously larger than the normal ones.

Carbagerun contestant. Not my picture.

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DISCUSSION (12)

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > duurtlang
04/10/2016 at 12:59

Nice write up and pictures. Those sound like some stupid assignments, which fit completely with the people I know that have participated, hillbillys (to use your wording). Seeing you don’t want to participate in the Carbagerun any more maybe it is an idea to organise an Opporun sometime, with nicer, more scenic routes, better assignments (more like the golden witch one or even more complicated) and less hillbillies. I would surely want to take part in that, and help to organise! And probably other Euro-Opponauts would like the idea too.

duurtlang > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
04/10/2016 at 13:09

I’m way ahead of you!

http://oppositelock.kinja.com/suggestion-opp…

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > duurtlang
04/10/2016 at 13:15

Nice, if it ever comes to an opporally, and you need any help organising it, you know where to find me, somewhere around Oppo.

duurtlang > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
04/10/2016 at 13:22

Well, with being posted May 1st 2015 that post is almost a year old. Downside is that we all live quite far apart.

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > duurtlang
04/10/2016 at 13:28

Maybe we can first try it with some of the European Oppo’s? Doing it in such a way that some of us have to travel a long way to get to the start but finish nearer, and some having the start close and have to travel a long way back home, similar to what you had.

Pabuuu, JDM car enthusiast & Italian parts hoarder > duurtlang
04/10/2016 at 13:41

I’m in. I’ll participate somehow.

duurtlang > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
04/10/2016 at 14:30

We could. I don’t think we should limit it to Oppo members (the more the merrier), but we could try to create something with the people here. Having said that, I don’t really have that much time right now.

If you were to arrange something like this, how would you do it? Which region? When? How long?

When I repost my Carbagerun chapters to Oppo I’ll add a link to my OppoRally post on the bottom to create so interest.

duurtlang > Pabuuu, JDM car enthusiast & Italian parts hoarder
04/10/2016 at 14:34

Like I asked BvdV: If you were to arrange something like this, how would you do it? Which region? When? How long?

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > duurtlang
04/10/2016 at 14:55

Indeed the more the merrier, however not too much for a first edition, I think. My time is also a tad limited, rignt now, but maybe it is better to aim a bit further away like summer 2017 or so?

I would go for a 7-9 days road trip, with a small puzzle element, which is needed to find out parts of the route, or you can pass the puzzle and hand back points. Also no strict limits on car prizes but try to keep it low cost. I guess summer would be ideal, at least for me personally. As for a region I think I would go for either scandinavia(never been there, but friends of my did a 3 car road trip up there, and said it was great) or the alps and the meditaranian coast.

Pabuuu, JDM car enthusiast & Italian parts hoarder > duurtlang
04/12/2016 at 08:06

I agree mostly with BvdV.

How would I do it?

I would get a core group to organize this event, that would be us, and once we have a solid plan, go to places like Reddit/r/thenetherlands, facebook, etc. to get the word out. We should keep it on a small scale for the first time we do this.

On the day we are starting this journey we meet at a central place to admire eachothers terrible cars, and to start from that point.

Where should we do it?

Scandinavia seems interesting, but also expensive on things like petrol. eastern-europe is a good place many people havent really been to already. The Alps perhaps? the options are endless. We need to set a certain goal we want to reach.

How long?

7 days seems like a good amount of time for such a trip.

When?

I agree with BvdV and set the date in summer a year from now. That gives enough time to sort everything out, gather people and prepare cars.

As for the cars, I would set a budget of 500 euro all in. This keeps the cost low and allows for more people to be able to participate. I had the idea to limit ourselves to a certain category each time. like this time we do hatchbacks, next time we do coupes, then luxury cars, etc..

As for prizes and challenges, we could give prizes for things like who can take the best picture of their car, who can sell their car for the most afterwards, or who got the most worth for his/her money. comparing the cars in any other way like horsepower would be fun, but I cant think of a safe way to settle that. Challenges could be fun, but I don’t know ho we should go about it.

I do not like the whole ‘wacky’ nature of the Carbagerun, I would much rather just keep the cars normal or lightly modified.

I have a local car dealer 5 minutes away that has a bad reputation, but also over 700 cars for under 500 euros... Guess I’ll be keeping a eye on them even more now..

Do you have an estimate on what the total cost per person could turn out to be? I’m a student, so this is an important point for me.

How do other organized rally’s like this handle breakdowns?

duurtlang > Pabuuu, JDM car enthusiast & Italian parts hoarder
04/12/2016 at 11:07

Cost:

We spent 7 nights in hotels, and shared a room. Costs were between €60 and €100 a night per room including breakfast, so half that per person. We used hotels because it was winter, you could use a tent in summer.

Fuel. That’s easy enough to calculate I guess. We drove >4000 km and burnt through at least 10L/100km of gasoline, partly due to the exhaust issue. This can be much cheaper if you pick a different vehicle and fewer kms.

Car: this too depends. With a bit of luck and hard work it doesn’t have to cost much. Buy a somewhat neglected €500 car from a poorly photographed and worded ad, spend another €250 in parts and other work to fix it up properly, create an almost professional ad when you sell it and sell it for €500-1500. This one is a gamble though.

Car insurance/tax. (the Netherlands only): Easy enough to calculate as well, but don’t underestimate this. The Galant costs me €85 a month in insurance+tax alone, and I’m 33 years old. Find a car you like and write down the license plate. Enter the plate plus your own info at independer.nl and get an insurance quote. Enter the plate on RDW.nl to get the weight. Use the weight to calculate tax on
http://www.belastingdienst.nl/rekenhulpen/mo…

Food. Can be as cheap or as expensive as you want.

Toll or different types of route tax. Can be quite expensive when you want travel quickly in France and Italy. Mandatory in Switzerland for highways I believe. It might be a nice challenge to try to avoid toll roads everywhere.

I do believe we’re looking at a very easy €1000 (maybe even €1500) a person for the carbagerun after we’ve sold the car. However, if you arrange such a thing youself it can be quite a lot cheaper. Especially if you don’t buy a car, but use one you’ve already got anyway.

Breakdowns are handled by expecting other teams to help. If that’s insufficient, tough luck. Call the ANWB/ADAC/whatever. Very few carbagerun teams were unable to reach Andorra in their car by the way.

Also: Jetcars?

I’d like to add more to this reply, but I’ve got a deadline to meet at work, sorry.

Pabuuu, JDM car enthusiast & Italian parts hoarder > duurtlang
04/15/2016 at 19:30

Yes, Jet cars is the place.. I love spending the afternoon there exploring the trainwrecks of cars they have on their huuge terrain. There is always something interesting there.. Abandonned tuner showcars, repo’d cars and last time, a Florida imported 3g Eclipse with polish plates and stickers. I could go on and on about the weird stuff they have had..

As for the Opporun (Do we need another name for it?) I think we need a better platform to plan and discuss and plan this event other than Oppo’s comment section. Something where every member can see all activity by the others.