Buy a van for under 600 quid, complete a series of surprise challenges, and then sell it on again (preferably for a profit). This is the mission that myself, CM's technical editor Colin Barnett and CM reporter Dylan Gray have all chosen to accept. So far the only other information we've been given is that they must be panel vans, have GVWs of between 2.2 and 3.5 tonnes and be road-legal.
Over the coming weeks you'll be able to follow our exploits on Roadtransport.com, in Commercial Motor and hopefully on YouTube too. While we can't promise you any encounters with alligators and stone-throwing inbred rednecks, we're sure it's going to be a highly entertaining venture nonetheless.

We will hopefully be setting our sights higher than this!

Buying a half-decent van for 600 quid isn't as easy as I originally thought it would be.
I was under the assumption that the classifieds would be bursting with potential vehicles for our Desperate Van Challenge - but it was not the case. In fact all my local rag had to offer in my price range was the choice of a Bedford Rascal or an early 90s Iveco Daily. The Rascal was out of the question because it was under our 2.2-tonne GVW limit and the Daily was instantly dismissed as it didn't have an MOT. One of the stipulations is that all three of our vans have to be road-legal.
My next stop was eBay - which I have used to buy a number of cheap cars over the years.

Having handed over my £398.88, and signed the DVLA paperwork, I was given the keys to my very own 'M'-registered Leyland DAF 200-Series. My attempt at winning the Roadtransport.com Desperate Van Challenge.
The old owner, which had already replaced it with a three-year-old Citroen Dispatch, seemed genuinely sad to see the old Royal Mail van go. As I pulled off his drive I'm pretty sure I detected a tear in his eye, then again this could have had something to do with the cloud of exhaust fumes that he was choking on!
The eBay advert had stressed that the driver wasn't a smoker - which was great news as it meant that the torn and badly soiled seats wouldn't have any unsightly cigarette burns on them! But what the advert didn't mention was that the van definitely was a smoker - and not just a social smoker either! In fact, I'm confident that the plume of white smoke that follows this thing around is single-handedly responsible for the warm winter we're having.

Residents of Gosport can breathe again!

Other than the smoke signals, which only lasted for about ten minutes, it soon became apparent that the van was in pretty good shape mechanically.

With Will having purchased his Postman Pat mobile and Colin having shotgunned the Ford Transit I had to look at some alternatives for my Desperate Van Challenge entry.
Having looked through many classifieds and countless websites, it was clear that the best way of getting a van with an MOT was on ebay. Of course there is always the risk of - what if it's complete rubbish - but that's a risk I felt I had to take. Being half German myself, I wanted to buy an efficient and trustworthy van from the land of Sauerkraut and Lederhosen. Yet quality has its price. It was almost like the VWs and Mercs were shouting at me for putting in a bid under £1,000.

Desperate Van Challenge - This picture says it all. Yes this is my van with our man of the hour - Dan Bowness, RAC patrol man 2906 - who rushed out to help out when, yes...here it comes...I broke down after about 80 miles, 400m from my house! *&%&$&£&£**£!!!!!!

I have spent many a long hour trying to decide what to do to in order to enhance the value of my Leyland Daf 200 Series - and no I'm not going to weigh it in for scrap!
I am under no illusion that the ex-Royal Mail van has little chance of winning the various competitions that make up our Desperate Van Challenge - and my only hope is that I can pick up some valuable points by selling it for more than the £398.88 I paid for it. So how do I do that?
The most obvious thing would be to tackle the rusty bodywork, but that would mean a hell of a lot of work. My wheel arches are totally knackered and the dreaded tin-worm have eaten huge great holes in my back doors.
I have had a quick look on the internet for some new ones, but at £200 for the pair they are out of my budget.
Then I thought maybe I could just paint the whole thing instead. It's amazing what horrors you can hide with a paintbrush. I figured I could paint it black, and just leave a red line running around the side and over the rear of the roof. I could call it the 'B-Team' van. But I was put off this idea when it occurred to me that the general public might not get the joke, making me look like a bit of a p***k. Back to the drawing board.
Then I had a brainwave - why not just clean the thing instead? I bought myself a bottle of T-Cut and got to work on the bonnet. The result was nothing short of staggering. Whoever said you can't polish a turd was wrong!

I took the Leyland Daf over to my parents' house in North London last weekend where it was used to take a load of rubbish to the dump. (And no I wasn't tempted to leave it there!)

In fact I must admit that I'm getting rather fond of the old girl. Yes she smokes a bit and she certainly doesn't have the perfect body, but she's totally reliable - which is more than I can say for Dylan's heap of French junk. In fact, the way I see it, I'm actually winning the Desperate Van Challenge at the moment. Dylan's Master appears to be knackered and Colin hasn't even found anything yet.

Look what I found on the back of my van this morning - a Skoda badge.
Although I'm convinced that this terrible act of sabotage was committed by one of my fellow Desperate Van Challenge competitors, I can't get either of them to admit to it.
I suppose I had better remove it straight away just in case Skoda threatens me with legal action!

As my loyal readers may remember from my previous two posts on our Desperate Van Challenge, I picked up my van in the dark without a working interior light. On the way back there were a few noises, but I put them down to a screwdriver or something similar that someone had forgotten to take out. How wrong I was....!

Tinsel from the Christmas tree, a bucket, bits of newspaper, a bag of sweets and many more items.

The "zero carbon footprint" jibes are over - I've bought my van! After a long search in the local papers that initially centred on that mainstay of the UK economy, the ex-BT Transit, I finally followed the same eBay route as the others. One of Luton's finest products, it's a one-owner, low mileage K-reg Vauxhall Midi petrol, that cost just £480.

As you can see my T-Cutting is going well - although I have to confess that I'm beginning to lose interest now. I've already got through a bottle of the stuff and I've only done about a third of the van. But what an incredible difference it makes to the overall appearance. In fact, ignore the noise of the wheel arches rusting and the fact that the back doors are hanging off, and it almost looks presentable - at least the nearside does anyway.

continued below...

My half-finished bonnet would make a great advertisement for T-Cut.

Yes dear readers, the French have stopped striking....at least for now.
My Desperate Scrapheap Challenge has now become a contender for the actual Desperate Van Challenge.
Before I tell you my amazing tale I want to congratulate Colin for getting his lovely ex-cake delivery van. Rumour has it that he found it while looking for cakes on ebay.....

First of all: The kit.
Adverts are always telling youngsters like myself to "wrap up", so I procured some latex gloves to stop myself getting an RTD (Renault Transmitted Disease).
The tool box is self explanatory; the bin bags were for the mountain of c**p in the back, and the German Bundeswehr jacket was to stop me being approached by nosy onlookers while I was concentrating on diesel engine surgery.

All loyal readers of the Desperate Van Challenge will know that my amazing Renault Master has not been the most reliable vehicle so far. I was convinced that I had fixed its charging problem by tightening the fan belt - but stupidly hadn't charged the battery back up again.

So, the day of the challenge Will had kindly offered to jumpstart me so I was able to drive to the test track and charge the battery during the process. Sounds simple. Apparently it's not. Due to parking arrangements in the street the van was parked, it had to be moved backwards a few metres so that the Van-Rouge could give mine the kiss of life.

I was very happy - it was a nice day, the sun was shining and most importantly my Renault Master seemed to be working very well. Though the battery was not fully charged, the warning light went off the moment more revs were applied - that means it's charging and all is well.

WRONG! Positive thinking does not always pay off. The Frenchy was fine until it died suddenly, without the warning signs from last time, at a bus stop. It could count itself lucky that I don't have arms like Mike Tyson, or it might have had a large hole in the driver door.

That's short for slow Toby. Though this is slightly unfair, as it was my vans fault and not Toby's that it came last in the timed lap trials.

How could it do any you ask? Simple - another jumpstart session. I was of course waiting for it to cut out any minute, but was not too concerned as we were off public roads. As well as timed laps, we also undertook and acceleration trial from 0 to 50mph on a very long stretch of road.

The Renault did not exactly set a new record; well.....it was in fact lucky to reach 50mph before the bloody runway ran out.

At the end of the day it became very clear that trying to come to the bottom of the van's problem and fixing it would not be worth it. So we headed for the scrap yard. With its last breath it made its way the last couple of miles to its final destination.

How much? £20? Yes, that is what the friendly man down the scrappy gave me. At that point I would I would have been happy with anything.

While the van has given me grief it has also brought me some joy - in bits.

But my final verdict is: Don't buy a 3.5 tonne French van for just £510!!!!!

I started off the day feeling like the definite underdog - after all what challenges could a 2.2-tonne Leyland Daf possibly beat a 3.5-tonne Renault Master or petrol-powered Vauxhall Midi at? It's slow, has appalling load access, a terrible payload and is basically the laughing stock of the van world. Unless one of the challenges involved leaving a smokescreen to confuse the fellow competitors I would stand little chance of winning. I even thought about spending the rest of my £600 on gifts for the judges - George Alexander from Glasses Guide and our mystery test driver - the 'Slug'.
Continued below......

Oh dear...

[WARNING: contains scenes of silly driving and naked rust]

Look at this fantastic van. It's a piece of British automotive history, its famous (kind of), it's been VERY well cared for and it's for sale.
That's right - this is your chance to buy the van that didn't lose the Desperate Van Chellenge. It's on eBay now and it has an opening bid of just £100.
You'll notice I decided not to show this picture on the eBay advert!

All the desperate vans have been sold now, and the expense claims submitted! That just leaves one final chapter in this rusty saga - deciding which desperate van is the winner. Well let's take a look at the most recent evidence - the profits and losses:

LeylandDAF (+£3.12), Vauxhall Midi (-£125), Renault Master (-£490)

Personally I think the figures speak for themselves - but we eagerly await the judges' final verdict.

Before people get too fixated on judging the van challenge on its financial success, I believe they should look at the bigger picture.

Yes, my van did make a loss of £490. And yes, Will's van made a profit of £4. But, if we want to make the criteria 'cost', other factors need to be taken into account.

While the Renault has most probably been melted down by now and used for steel girders in affordable housing, the LDV is still roaming the UK's busy roads giving everyone it passes an asthma attack. This will cost the NHS thousands. Not only that, but people saving up to buy a house (made with the help of my van) will not be able to afford it anymore, because all their hard-earned cash will have been spent on cough medicine.

And considering that Colin's Cake Stud mobile is petrol, it will be necking petrol like there's no tomorrow - prompting probably another rise in fuel duty.

So, dear judging public, please consider that the recycled, carbon-neutral Renault will not only be saving the planet, but also considerable amounts of cash.

Peugeot's new sector creating Bipper goes on sale today, and we have just given it its first drive on UK roads. We bring you an exclusive video preview.