Philip Young’s brave attempt to break the driving record for Cape Town to London in a Fiat Panda is getting closer to the off.

The challenge is; Can a Fiat Panda TwinAir, powered by one of the smallest engines you can drive out of a UK showroom, beat the record that has stood for 30 years, set by the British Army in a factory-prepared Range Rover, as the best time from Cape Town to London?

The target of Philip Young and Paul Brace is to drive 1000 miles a day non-stop if the ultimate record time is to be broken. They have a five inch thick mattress from Mothercare in the back to sleep on when not driving, and a large funnel, for the obligatory ‘calls of nature’. Spares are limited to a throttle cable along with a roll of gaffa tape and tube of super-glue, the crew have one spare pair of charcoal-lined underpants and a couple of T-shirts, which might last the trip providing border guards dont help themselves first.

The car has received 500 hours of preparation in the hands of  Tony Fowkes Autos in North London, other than that, its exactly as it drove out of the showroom of Fiat dealers, The Panda is now on a cargo ship to Cape Town – if it gets back to London’s Marble Arch and meets Mayor Borris Johnson, it could become the world’s most famous Panda, as well as going down as the one that can beat a Range Rover across two Continents.

You can learn more about the record attempt at www.africarecordrun.com, and we’ll be following the progress of the team, both before and during the ambitious run.