If you were driving over 2,500 miles, hopefully your chosen vehicle would have comfy seats, a lot of leg room and fully working air conditioning.
That is not the case for Strategic Manager Dave Woodhouse and Head of Policy & Compliance Richard Grafton, who will be driving their fifteen-year-old MG TF from Sheffield to Monte Carlo, as part of the UK’s first art roadshow banger rally, Bangers and Cash.
The concept has been created by Sheffield artist Matt Cockayne of Goo Design in collaboration with Rebecca Staden of Becks & Co and Sheffield City Council. They are working together with Roundabout, Sheffield’s local youth homeless charity, which provides shelter, support and life skills training to vulnerable young people.
To enter, Team Henry Boot purchased a car for £600 and chose an artist to paint the bonnet from a selection who had submitted artwork for the project. We selected Sheffield graphic artist Rob Lee who is passionate about using colour, shape, geometric precision and optical illusion. The finished piece, Go Faster Stripes, was inspired by the giant bird of prey on the bonnet of a Pontiac Trans-am and is made up in his signature optical art style. The bonnet is on display at the Winter Garden in Sheffield throughout August and selected bonnets are already open for online bids.
Local businesses and individuals have all shown their support for our challenge by donating to Roundabout. The support of our sponsors, H E Barnes, Whittam Cox Architects, Brantingham Homes and LX Engineering (North) is much appreciated and will make a huge difference in helping improve the lives of young vulnerable people in our community.
The rally will take place from 21-25 September where we will be joined by 22 other teams from companies across the Sheffield region. The cars will set off from Meadowhall, venturing through Brussels, Luxembourg City, Strasbourg, Lucerne, St Gotthards Pass, Milan and on to Monaco before reaching the finish line at Monte Carlo followed by an evening of celebration in Nice. The bonnet artwork must travel with the car all the way to Monte Carlo and be returned intact to be sold in a live auction at the Mercure St Paul’s Hotel on Saturday 20 October.
After many evenings searching for a suitable banger that will go the distance, including crossing the Alps, we went for one of Britain’s finest, the MG TF (nicknamed ‘Bez’).
Although not known for their reliability, that’s all part of the challenge. We understand it will be an exhausting few days with the difficult conditions both in and outside the car, but I hope Bez will get us there, even with over 89,000 miles on the clock.
Dave Woodhouse, Strategic Business Manager, Henry Boot Construction
All the proceeds from the teams’ fundraising efforts and the auction will go towards extending Roundabout’s prevention work across the Sheffield City Region, which aims to reduce the number of young people declaring themselves homeless. The ground-breaking project delivers highly effective mediation and drop-in advice services, as well as peer education about homelessness in schools, delivered by trained volunteers who have experienced homelessness themselves.
To support Team Henry Boot, visit their JustGiving page to make a donation and see how Dave and Richard are getting on.
