Many thanks to Ric and Julie Baines for contributing this to the Les Guis project. It's a 1987 Subaru four-wheel drive petrol-engined estate car that Julie used to run around in.

The tin worm has attacked it violently, and the underfloor, inner sills and bulkhead are beyond economical repair. Hence its ... er ... withdrawal from the roads of the UK and the generous donation to my project.

However it runs really well, and I didn't have any problems driving it from Oswestry back to Belgium. While it was here, it did the rounds for a while until (rather unfortunately) a brake pipe burst. So that put an end to my unauthorised gallivantings.

Next stop was the the farm in France, where it's going to spend the rest of its (considerable, I hope) working life down the mud tracks in four-wheel drive mode hauling logs and building material once I've made the trailer on the chassis that Paul's friend Gary gave me.

November 2002 saw the Subaru hitch a ride down to the farm on the towing dolly, as you can see. It was imediately put to work rescuing the ex-army trailer that was bogged down in the mud with a quarter-tonne of gravel inside it.

Since then, it's been used mainly for pulling things around. The battery is defunct, but one of the 12 volt power packs gets it to turn over quickly enough to start it.

I've damaged the left-hand door on it unfortunately, but I was offered another, on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina of all places, but the obvious logistics of this ruled that idea out. I shall have to look elsewhere.

As you know, I'm planning to distill my own alcohol from tomatoes grown in the waste-water lagoons to make a natural road fuel to replace petrol, and I shall probably use the Subaru as the mobile test bed to test the feasibility of this. That should be interesting. That is, of course, unless anyone can recommend a diesel engine to go in it.

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