Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
A car driven by two Lafarge managers made it through the Alps as part of this year’s Keyline rally.
Every year builders merchant Keyline sets staff, customers and suppliers a challenge of getting to a specific location in Europe in a variety of old cars, in a certain time and using only good,old-fashioned maps and trunk roads. Oh and no hotels, only campsites.
This year, the Thunderball Rally took the theme of James Bond and challenged the teams to drive to the Schilthorn near Mürren in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland, via Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland.
The revolving restaurant at the summit was made famous by the film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in which James Bond was played by George Lazenby and the arch-villain Blofeld by Telly Savalas.
The Lafarge car – an 1971 MGB roadster was driven by Chris Hall and Kevan Greenhalgh and, according to Hall, behaved “impeccably, apart from some overheating of the gearbox over the alps leading to the overdrive temporarily not working.
” We had three violent thunderstorms two of which were whilst we were in our tents so we ended up packing up at 4am in the morning on both occasions wet
and tired!”
The entire rally raised £110,000, with the Lafarge car accounting for £2,000 of that.
