Skoda Felicia in Gumbalkan 2022

[D.FYLAKTOS]

https://gumbalkan.cz/english/

 

FELICIÍ CO TO DÁ / Gumbalkan 2022 (Official Road Movie)

 

 

 

Felicia is still Alive and Kicking 💪

[Thefeliciahacker]

we've seen it too much abuse tbh

[D.FYLAKTOS]

Felicia sings ''i am still standing".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ_aPtt4U8M

 

[Thefeliciahacker]

They are too abusive so i dont like em

[D.FYLAKTOS]

Driving for fun isn't only in the Highway with 80 Km speed always in right lane.

Personally i admire their decision and courage to do such a thing.

[Papez]

7 hours ago, Thefeliciahacker said:

They are too abusive so i dont like em

 

Point of gumbalkan is to get as cheap car as possible. They are saving cars from scrapyard for the last jurney. No amount of abuse is worse than a car press.

[D.FYLAKTOS]

Quote

BASIC INFO

 

Navigational rally with no off-road cars for up to 1000€ buying price OR the car has to be older than 33 years. No modifications price is considered in this rule.

We recommend buying the cheapest most bizzare car you can find and pimping it to your liking.
Remember, AWD SUCKS!!!

 

 

 

Many Skoda cars, of course among them some Felicia.

 

[nta16]

Good to see youngsters who either know, or might learn on the adventure, how to make-do and mend rather than relying on expecting to pressing a button, contact someone else to come out to them or a  computer program, to sort everything out for them.

 

[RicardoM]

On 22/01/2024 at 23:04, Papez said:

 

Point of gumbalkan is to get as cheap car as possible. They are saving cars from scrapyard for the last jurney. No amount of abuse is worse than a car press.

Saving them? You mean the cars get repaired to live another life? Or is it in fact a new 'clever' way of exporting garbage cars from one scrapyard to another in a foreign country?

[Papez]

6 hours ago, RicardoM said:

Saving them? You mean the cars get repaired to live another life? Or is it in fact a new 'clever' way of exporting garbage cars from one scrapyard to another in a foreign country?

 

Yes, they get repaired to get there and back. They are not literally pulled from scrapyard, as they still have to be road legal, but cars around this price point usually end up there. And since they are registered, they cannot stay in the other country either.

[RicardoM]

1 hour ago, Papez said:

They are not literally pulled from scrapyard

When you said 'saved from scrapyard' I thought the cars were already abandoned, ready to be saved from being crushed and melted, then repaired from a last trip to another country. I watched a series of such contests on the Discovery channel. Scrapyard Wars or similar.

Now I understand you meant 'saved from getting to scrapyard', on a journey from-to Czechia. Otherwise it would have been a clever way to get rid of garbage cars from Czechia and dump them to Romania, making videos of their adventure in the process. Nevertheless, I agree with @Thefeliciahackerwhen he says he doesn't like Skoda Felicia cars being abused. I don't like the abuse of any car.

[D.FYLAKTOS]

''No car abuse'' driver.

 

[Papez]

59 minutes ago, RicardoM said:

When you said 'saved from scrapyard' I thought the cars were already abandoned, ready to be saved from being crushed and melted, then repaired from a last trip to another country. I watched a series of such contests on the Discovery channel. Scrapyard Wars or similar.

 

Yeah, it was a bit unclear - the car can be legally scrapped even before it gets physically to the scrapyard and at that point, it cannot go to a public road. 

It is indeed closest to the scrapyard wars they can go in the legal environment of CZ/EU and on public roads. If they could actually pull a car from the junkyard and re-register it, they'd do it for sure 😃

 

I don't like pointless abuse either, but this type atleast provides some sense of adventure to the involved and gives some purpose to a worthless piece of junk, which is status of 20yr old Skodas here. It's not just pointless destroying of stuff.

[Thefeliciahacker]

The parts of them could one day help me keep my felicia alive 

[D.FYLAKTOS]

Yes but they have stock engine, stock suspension, stock brakes, stock lights, stock steering wheel etc, everything under specifications...so no matter how they use them it's legal and good. 

[Thefeliciahacker]

4 hours ago, D.FYLAKTOS said:

use them it's legal and good.

its legal, but not for the indended purpose

[D.FYLAKTOS]

1 hour ago, Thefeliciahacker said:

but not for the indended purpose

 

 

 

How about this?

[Thefeliciahacker]

52 minutes ago, D.FYLAKTOS said:

How about this?

neither

 

[hzoltaan]

This is becoming more and more popular. Many years ago i can accross the Mongol rally that's about taking a very much underpowered small car from London to Ulanbataar. That takes some cash and mostly time, so i never managed, even though my Suzuki Carry would be absolutely perfect for it. Cars  can not be left there... 

Then there is the Bamako rally, where you can join up pro rally teams with something hopelessly not suitable for that kind of job, and then you get to enter for free or something like that.

There's a Polish Zlombol that means communist cars, or cars designed during the communist era, so Skoda Favorit still plays... lot of Ladas, Yugo, Wartburg... That happens on road though, no abuse at all. Cars are supported through companies for advertisement on the cars. The money goes for charity. 

 

there's a small Gruz rally think, organised entirely privately, where you enter with something not off-road capable and go to places which are considered off road. They went to Romania last year, and Felicias are very much welcome. 

 

I guess as cars became very much available and still not too horribly expensive to run (I mean here in Eastern Europe) you can really get a still decent 30 year old car for a box of doughnuts, and have fun with it. That was unimaginable 10-20 years ago when a working car had a much much bigger value. 

This year I planned to enter the gruz rally (Zlombol just became waay too big, last time they went with 5000 teams to Albania) with my not much loved Opel Astra Classic. 

There's a guy who is running a Fiat Cinquecento with massively tractor like tires and goes everywhere with it. Cinquecento and Seicento were built here some 100km from me, and they are dirt cheap.

 

Even the Mongol Rally organisers (theadventurist.com i think) started to make more local rallies, for people who can't afford to drop life for 3-4 months... Now you can start and drive around Europe. 

In that case Ricardo's comment is legit though.. you might end up scrapping your French car in Estonia, but let's treat the EU as one big car economy. After all I did the opposite, went with a wreck from Hungary to the UK, had an accident in Belgium, and eventually sold the carcass for metal in England. 

 

I'm not sure about abuse or no abuse... the sheer fun and memories are worth for me, though I personally would do my best to bring the car back and keep it, complete with the stickers, scars, modifications. A Suzuki Carry that limped back from say Kyrgistan would be on a plinth in my garage!

 

[nta16]

Years back a mate entered a rally to Gambia from England via France etc. then desert, the idea was you bought a vehicle for under a certain amount took it to Gambia and left it there to be sold, if you made it there, and the process would go to a charity there and provide vehicles to be auctioned.  Three other blokes from the village want to join in all middle-aged or more and no idea about cars.  First they bought a IIRC Mitsubishi with 4WD but it was an electronic gearbox with a problem.  Next they listen to sense and got a little Suzuki with manual locking hubs and an old VW bus.  Trouble with the bus with it was ex-army of somewhere and whilst the second electrics (for coms) might have been useful the riffle rack would cause problems in some countries and their border controls.  I convinced them to remove the riffle rack and paint over the "missile-proof" camouflage paint and to test the vehicle by all driving it, and to find out how slow it would be over the Pyrenees and elsewhere,  They still didn't listen about how slow it would be especially loaded with stuff for the journey and to give away.

 

Big night at the pub night before they set of with a team from Northern Ireland joining them there, this was a team of youngsters and they turned up with an ex-Northern Ireland Police Land Rover Discovery complete with ammunition safe and some kind of Police large decal badges I tried to persuade them to remove the safe and decals but they thought it was fun - until they were detained at a border crossing.  It was well known you might have to bribe the army border guards or at least not upset them, they have rifles and it's their country not yours.

 

Our local pub's rally is a bit different, Rust Bucket Rally, supposed to buy a car for £500(helps with sorting it and getting it logo'd wrapped if you have mates in relevant trades) drive it in Europe and return whilst getting sponsorship to raise funds for the nominated charity. - https://www.therustbucketrally.co.uk/

 

Fiat Cinquecento and Seicento, last of the proper sized small family cars.  👍

     

[hzoltaan]

Yeah, I'd not expect border control being very understanding and/or appreciating the sense of humor like that. 

Sometimes people really overdo it... and the main thing is to participate, get there, and have fun. And part of the fun is to fix broken off bits locally, that becomes nasty with a rare / expansive / special car. 

 

 

[D.FYLAKTOS]

Well, Gumbalkan isn't this:

 

 

[D.FYLAKTOS]

Gumbalkan 2023

 

 

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/--Um3EARyyo?si=NjqOqE6ymmcKADWz