One of the big requirements for entering the Shitbox Rally is that you have a shitbox. These are not as easy to acquire as I’d first assumed: for a start, the vehicle has to cost less than a grand. Now you can get a car for a few hundred dollars (go onto your favourite car sales website and search for the keywords ‘scrap’, ‘good for parts’, ‘massive accident’), but you have to start rolling in the extra costs like rego, blue slip, and occasionally arc welding and you hit the $1000 limit pretty quickly.

So, there are two approaches. The first is to see what the dealers have at the back of their car lots. I spent the weekend in the rain out on Parramatta Road in the car yards looking for that absolute gem of a runner miraculously overlooked by the rest of the crowds. The nearest I got was a Ford Telstar for $900 that had probably last seen rego under a Bob Hawke government. I’m beginning to suspect that seam of bargains is pretty much tapped out.

The other option is through the private sales, which is much more promising. A friend of mine has a 1968 Austin 1800 that he could give away, but rates it as a 50/50 chance of not even making it to the start line in its current state of repair. On the other hand, there are private sales for $800 and up that have rego and are on the road now. But is it better the devil you know? Phrases in the private sale ads like “I suspect it may have blown a head gasket maybe” could translate to “I patched up the engine block with duct tape”.

So the big decision, and with the clock ticking down to 5 weeks before start, is whether it’s better the devil you know. Maybe a ’68 Austin is what the rally is about, and maybe potentially grinding to a halt in the middle of the Outback is a fitting end to a great machine. Maybe.