My friend Garth and I have signed up to participate in the Winter 2024 Shitbox Rally.

What is the Shitbox Rally you ask? Well, simple concept really. In teams of two you drive thousands of kilometres over some of Australia’s most questionable roads in a car that can cost you no more than $1500… a Shitbox. You will be joined by hundreds of other teams of two all doing the same thing in their own Shitboxes and everybody will be raising money for Cancer Research. Outside the requirement to find a vaguely roadworthy car for less than $1500 the only stipulation is that each team must raise at least $5000 before the Rally commences. Although we cannot find it written down anywhere, we presume orange Rosebank Stackhats are another pre-requisite.

Strangely, mechanical skills of any kind are not required. That’s good.

I will document key milestones in our journey on this blog, but if you wish to learn more about the Rally you can go here.

The first challenge (after tracking down some genuine Stackhats) seems to be finding a suitable vehicle, with a little bit of rego on it, in the right price range. Following some preliminary research my first observation is that car adverts for vehicles in this price range are written in a slightly different manner to what one might be used to. Here are some early excerpts (written verbatim):

A 2001 Citroen berlingo located in Maitland, NSW

Great little van surprisingly alot of room for the size of it cheep on fuel too just is having a issue with the immobilizer i havnt had time realy to look at it but my licence is disqualified now anyways and got too many cars its got to go.

A 1991 Subaru Brumby located in Dog Rocks, NSW

Car runs but are issues with engine

Otherwise perfect car for paddock basher of project vehicle.

Back window shattered

A 2000 Chrysler PT Cruiser located in Camden, NSW

Up for sale my pt cruiser

Have had it for a number of years , planned to fix it up and sell it but have lost interest

Was running however it has been sitting for over 3 years

Make me an offer it’s pretty dirty from sitting around but can all be cleaned up

A 1996 Mitsubishi Pajero located in Wokalup, WA

Moved house forgot to do change of address and it ended up unlicensed. To many things for me to sort to put it over pits. Its pretty straight. Suit farm use.

Bit of ping noise from engine which i have not had advice on as car cant be drive unlicensed. I dont know not a mechanic.

An imprecisely old Lada Niva located in Coonabarabran, NSW

Lada niva country car , very minimal rust . local origanal car .fuel tanks. it’s a lada , what more can i say.

I am sure our dream car is out there somewhere.

The Winter 2024 Shitbox Rally route