What is the Mongol Rally?

The Mongol Rally thunders 10,000 miles across the mountains, desert and steppe of Europe and Asia each summer. There’s no backup, no support and no set route; just you, your fellow adventurists and a tiny car you bought from a scrapyard for £11.50.

If nothing goes wrong, everything has gone wrong…

Bollocks to tarmac, ABS and gadgets that help you find your navel. The Mongol Rally is about getting lost, using your long neglected wits, raising shedloads of cash for charity and scraping into the finish line with your vehicle in tatters and a wild grin smeared across your grubby face.

Neither your car nor your life will ever be the same again.

Shitboxes mandatory, telephone boxes optional.

The rules of the Mongol Rally are gloriously simple.

1. You can only take a farcically small vehicle.
2. You’re completely on your own.
3. You’ve got to raise £1000 for charity.

The car.

A Mongol Rally car should be 1000cc, ideally less. Because it’s not always easy to find a car with an engine that small these days the Adventurists will overlook any car up to 1.2litres. But seriously, no bigger.

There are very few rules on the Mongol Rally, but the Adventurists are somewhat pernickety when it comes to the matter of vehicles.

You must bring the shittest rolling turd of a car you can find. Use a car you swapped for a bag of crisps. Seek out a steed that most people wouldn’t even use for the weekly shop. Better still, come along on a scooter.

After all, an adventure is only an adventure when things go wrong. Where in the name of Uranus would the fun be in cruising 10,000 miles in a 4×4? If you look at your vehicle and think, “This is the right car for crossing a desert”, then you’ve got it badly wrong.

Wussy wagons are Out. Shitmobiles are In.

Tell me more.

Don’t fancy it? Find other ways to Fundraise for Cool Earth.