Stories

It was back in May that the call went out for anyone with "the capacity to explain to a Croatian kebab shop owner that you need his grease" and the ability to "cope with the unknown, the unlikely and the unrepeatable" to meet at a suitably greasy spoon "caff" in North London for the start of one of the most unusual banger rallies ever.

Grease to Greece Rally 2008

Ralliers, up for the aptly named Grease to Greece challenge, not only faced a challenging 2,500 mile race across Europe but a race in a car fuelled solely on second hand chip fat scrounged from restaurants, service stations, hospitals and old folks' homes along the way.

Fat-finding mission

Dubbed a "fat-finding mission", by the rally's organisers, 10 fat fuelled ralliers rose to the challenge and on August 16th pointed their bangers in the direction of the Mediterranean and 'stepped on the grease'.

Just over a week later and, amazingly, eight out of the original 10 cars had made it with the first over the line - a Peugeot 405 brought on eBay by two brothers from Trowbridge - Adrian and Andy Henson:

"The winner is the team that uses the most eco-friendly way of getting to Athens from London," says Adrian Henson, "and yes we were the first to turn up at the site here by a long shot."

In a car, souped up to run on vegetable oil (recycled from used cooking oil) as well as diesel, the brothers actually managed to finish the journey without having to test their Croatian:

Start of the Rally....

"We managed to collect about 300 litres of vegetable oil from pubs restaurants bars and other such places at home," says Adrian, "and amazingly we managed to get to Athens on the oil we'd collected. 

"In theory we could have driven here, non-stop, without stopping for fuel at all and it wasn't difficult to get hold of it.  We've done 2,500 miles for free on just what we scrounged within a couple of days."

So with most of the county's old cooking oil on board, it has to be asked: Where exactly do you stash 60 odd gallons of chip fat on a used Peugeot 205?

"Basically we had a 140 litre tank in the boot," says Adrian, "we had the main tank and we had Jerry cans.

"But, obviously, you can't just chuck filthy oil into your car.  So we used a centrifuge to take all the muck out of the oil so that it was clean and ready to go into the engine."

Adrian and Andy Henson

No fry ups please...

Having scavenged the most waste oil, the brothers were not only presented with the much coveted 'Golden Lard Award' (an antique brass grease gun) by the British Ambassador in Athens but a slap up meal as well.

But fresh off a 2,500 mile trip, with a distinctly fishy smell about it, the slap up wasn't a fry up:

"The used oil smells of whatever was cooked in the oil," says Adrian.  "So it can smell of fish, it can smell of chips, it can smell of kebab meat… anything.

"So no fry ups… we've smelt enough of that over the last week."