Rally The Future Against Cancer - A shitbox finds a new home - Chrysalis - Digital BlogChrysalis

‘Rally The Future Against Cancer’ is a joint initiative by digital and innovation consultancies Deepend and Nomad as part of the Shitbox Rally, a charity rally to raise money for the Cancer Council of NSW. Deepend and Nomad owners, Matt Griffin and David McGowan, will attempt driving 4,000km across the middle of Australia in a car (a ‘shitbox’) worth less than $1000. Both agencies and staff have joined forces to transform the ‘shitbox’ into a hyper-connected car with emerging technologies to help raise funds for the research and treatment of cancer.

Get behind them, get behind the wheel.

We’ve got a ‘shitbox’ alright!

After searching high and low for the perfect ‘shitbox’ to take us on our epic journey across the middle of Australia, we finally located the winner whilst trawling Gumtree.

Within about 10 minutes of the ad going live, we were on the phone to the seller arranging to see the car that night. The guy selling the car, a really nice bloke named Chris, who was genuinely keen for us to have the car when he heard that it was going to help to raise money for charity. We managed to negotiate a deal at $950, just sneaking in under the budget of $1000 that we had for the car.

So we finally have our Shitbox – named “Mignon” after an old flame of Dave’s; a Holden VT Commodore station wagon. She’s built to last (although in Dave’s case, she didn’t). 2000 model and a beautiful example of motoring history. Even with a mere 180,000km on the clock, a cracked radiator, missing spare wheel, broken aircon, cracked dash and a paint job that looks like Darth Vader’s face with his mask off; she’s reliable and economical, but most importantly she’s build like a brick s**t house, so should handle the tough road ahead!

Mignon will be getting a serious makeover in the coming months, including a number of custom accessories made with cutting-edge technology to transform her from shitbox to hyper-connected car. Our aim is to have you, the public, get behind the wheel and help us drive it while raising valuable funds along the way (and have some fun while we’re at it). In-car technology update will be posted shortly, but brainstorms are already underway.

Until then, here is a photo of Mignon pre-makeover. What a beauty.