BANGER RALLY JOINS FORCES WITH CRAP TRUMPS
Some of Britain’s worst cars are preparing to leave our shores this week to take part in the annual Staples 2 Naples(1) banger rally. This year the rally has formed a special partnership with Crap Trumps, the antidote card game to the 70s classic Top Trumps.
Staples 2 Naples is organised by Streetsafari.com(2)and is now in its 4th year. Participants must buy a car for less than £100 and then get to Naples in just 4 days, covering over 1,500 difficult miles across the Alps and undertaking numerous challenges along the way, in an attempt to win £1,000 prize money.
Crap Trumps are just like Top Trumps, with a twist. Instead of the collection of cool and classic cars adorning the cards with their super-charged features and scores, Crap Trumps is all about the really rubbish cars we all actually drive in the real world. Side-splittingly funny, Crap Trumps features the deeply irrelevant, highly irregular and downright stupid qualities of some shockingly crap cars. Such as windscreen wiper speeds (per minute), cost needed to pass MOT (often well into the thousands), surface area of rust, and the all-important Crap Factor of the car.
The Crap Trumps team will be taking part in the Staples 2 Naples rally this year for the first time ever and collecting the vital stats of some of the participating heaps, in order to release a special edition of the Crap Trumps series which has so far featured Crap Cars Series I and Crappy Christmas.
They will have plenty of cars to choose from. Places on the Staples 2 Naples rally sold out in less than 4 minutes this year, and there are over 400 people taking part, in cars including Austin Allegros, Minis and even a pub on wheels. Whether or not all of them will make it to Naples remains to be seen…
The emphasis is not on speed, but the route and challenges set along the way are designed to push the knackered old cars to their limits. Many participants choose to raise money for charity along the way, and those doing so are rewarded with extra points.
Justin Clements, director of Streetsafari.com said, “We are very excited that some of the cars, taking part in what is most likely their last ever journey, will be immortalised forever as part of the Crap Trumps series. The participants usually spend a lot of time ‘decorating’ their cars for the rally – we’ve had everything from a Vauxhall Astra ‘spaceship’ to a Back to the Future ‘Delorian’ turn up on previous rallies, so who knows what we’ll get this year?”
James Sapp of Crap Trumps added, “We’re so pleased to have found this partnership. I’m sure that some of the cars on the Staples 2 Naples rally will provide is with our funniest series of cards ever, and I can’t wait to actually be a participant in the rally because it sounds like we’re going to have a right laugh.”
The cars leave Staples Corner on the North Circular road in London on Friday September 22nd, and finishing near Naples on Monday September 25th.
The new Crap Trumps pack, based on the participating cars, will be available from November 1st from iwantoneofthose.com .
1. The Staples2Naples rally leaves Britain on Friday 22nd September 2006, arriving in Naples on Monday September 25th. Over 100 teams will be taking part, in cars purchased for less than £100.
2. StreetSafari Ltd is the original European banger-rallying company. The original event, the infamous and highly successful Staples 2 Naples rally (which took contestants from Staples Corner in London to Naples in Italy) first took place in 2003 and has taken place every September since. Due to overwhelming demand, further rallies have been introduced over the years including Home 2 Rome, Czech Wrecks and now BABE, with even more adventurous rallies planned for next year.
