Today I called the first from a short list of friends who might know someone suitable, and his surprising answer was “Sure, and by the way he is just walking though the door. You want to talk to him?”
Five minutes later we had our mechanic! He is an experienced rally driver who has always been building the racing cars on his own, who knows how to prepare off-road vehicles, and who is enthusiastic enough to help us – well, not really free of charge, but at a fair price.
Feeling lucky…

One of the open questions I am most scared about is to find a guy who is able to prepare the car for the race.
The selective requirements are: experienced in off-road vehicles, knows secret sources of spare parts for long phased out Japanese cars, and finally enthusiastic enough to consider this job as charity and to work for free

Found our car for the race today! Well, found a car which I hope we can build up to eventually stand the 8500 kilometers to Bamako. Its a 27 year old long wheelbase Nissan Patrol 2.8 turbo diesel.

Little is know about the history of the Beast. Its chassis is from 1983, the body from the beginning of the nineties, the last few years it has spent in a small village in central Hungary.
The odometer shows 246000km, but its real mileage is probably twice as high.

It’s big enough for 2-3 people, and simple enough to be fixed by any African mechanic.

And it was cheap at EUR 2,600.- and comes fully loaded with a radio and 3 speakers (front left one missing), power windows in the front and on the rear right side (window crank on the rear left), a coconut smell Wunderbaum dangling from the inside mirror, lots of spare parts on the rear seat (including one front door, a tailgate, some windows, one tire, and a wiper motor), and finally a map of Budapest from 1991, which is going to be essential aid for the first few kilometers of the race. It was love at first sight…