East Kilbride men rally for charity

Dec 30 2009 by Paul Thomson, East Kilbride News

IF you are driving through the snowy streets of East Kilbride in the next few days and a replica of the famous Blues Brothers Mobile passes you by – don’t worry, you are not seeing things.

It will be a member of East Kilbride’s latest fund-raising team going for a drive in their ‘Booze Mobile’.

Three friends, who have known each other since first year at Hunter High School, all celebrate their 40th birthday in 2010 and, as a unique way of celebrating this milestone in their lives, they decided to raise money for charity while enjoying themselves in the process.

Colin Sullivan of Gardenhall, Glenn Fielding of Calderwood, Joe Buleman from Parkhead and St Leonards man Kenny McKay, decided to enter the 2010 Sucata Split Charity Car Run and will compete in the rally at the end of May.

The Sucata is a rally run by a charity called Gemin-i.org, who support children in Africa.

Teams tackle a gruelling 1400-mile car run between Bruges in Belgium and Split in Croatia in just over four days but one stipulation is that each car must cost no more than £250.

The East Kilbride team managed to buy a 1990 three-litre 7 series BMW from eBay for £250 and have spent the princely sum of only £15 to transform it into a replica of the famous Blues Brothers car.

All the lads are huge fans of the Blues Brothers films so it was only natural to copy their heroes for the rally and Kenny is looking forward to raising cash for a good cause.

He said: “As everyone is turning 40 next year, we wanted to do something a bit daft to celebrate but by doing this rally we will help raise cash for charity as well.

“We have funded the trip off our own backs and we will try to raise as much money as we can.

“It was great to get some work done on the knackered, old BMW and dressing as the Blues Brothers for this will be great fun.

“We couldn’t call the car the Blues Mobile for copyright reasons and decided over a pint one night to call ourselves the Booze Brothers.”

The team has been helped out by a local firm.

Colin said: “We must thank SS Services in the Village, who gave us a re-spray completely free of charge, and local photographer Graeme Brown of GeeBee Images for helping us provide the fantastic photographs we will use to raise as much money as we can.”

The team has spent the past three months transforming the car into its current state and will now spend the remaining time fundraising.

They are planning bag packings, car washes and race nights to raise the money.

If any company wishes to sponsor the team, further information can be found at www.boozebrothers2010.co.uk