I haven’t been able to reach my mechanic for a week now, the mobile is always ringing, but nobody picks up. Has anybody seen him?

A CB radio is one of the very few mandatory items of a Budapest-Bamako. I found a 30 years old Stalker IX in a second hand shop on the Internet, trying to bargain to get it for less then EUR 50. No single piece of our equipment shall be less than 25 years old!

Initially I hoped my father would still have the CB radios we used at the beginning of the eighties as phones (no, not as mobile phones, but as landline substitute, although living in the capital we couldn’t have a landline at that time), but unfortunately he sold them already several years ago. Instead of the radios he only found some brochures from the late seventies, poor substitute, but much fun to read. Some samples:

Do you want to get over the inevitable and complete isolation while driving your car? Install a CB radio to be connected to the rest of the world

or

Our shop is switching to computer based order administration. Now Mrs. Brehm is able to process your orders even faster than before!

Murphy’s law is striking us hard. Everything that can fail or break in that engine does fail or break or both.

Latest news is that the radiator cannot be repaired 🙁 A spare part is too expensive at more than 400 EUR, we will try to fit a second hand one of a Mitsubishi Pajero, but have to modify the front, another few days lost.
First test driving mid of June is not realistic anymore…