Well, the time has come my friends.

The XR6 Turbo, the van, the wife and I are about to do the big lap, around the block, see this fair brown land of ours.

Tonight I leave for the first short 200K leg of a 16,000km - 20,000km journey from Melbourne to Bourke to Longreach to Darwin to Broom to Perth to Port Augusta to Melbourne, back just in time for christmas (maybe!).

I will keep you all posted with our progress and pics along the way. I will keep you posted re how the Turbo copes with the weight, heat etc of the drive to the top and back. B)

Have fun at the Nation wide get together at the Ford factory.

c ya..

Regards

Brendan

Have a good trip and enjoy the power of the turbo pulling the van.

Ian

Have a good trip Brendan hope it all goes well.

Lookin forward to the updates.

Good luck - hope you have a great time and keep us posted.

What is the laden weight of the van? I'm particularly interested as the towing limits of the turbo were restricted due to overheating concerns. Your trip should give a good indication of how conservative (or not) the Ford limits are (1600kg for the auto. I think).

Given the sustained high speed towing temps you are likely to experience, it should give us all an idea of the cooling capacity reserve in our cars.

Look forward with envy to hearing of your experiences. Suggested a similar trip to Mrs zeke and she said I could get very lonely!! - she's not keen on extended travel - damn!! Might have to set out by myself and see if I stay lonely?

Regards

zeke

All the best, Brendan ... that's a lot of k's in 2.5 months (or so) ... lucky bas*ard!

All of the above.

Very envious of you. Absolutley bloody love driving in the way out country areas and hope to do a similar thing one day.

Probably have to wait until I can join the Grey Nomad Brigade.

Be looking forward to seeing youe exploits.

Lucky bas*ard!

The T will love it. I drove from Broken Hill to Sydney in one run.

Keep us up to date!!!

Zeke,

The van is a 1100Kg single axle 12.5ft van. So with all our crap I ekon the weight would be around 1400kg. My T is a Auto so I will keep you all updated.

There have been no mods to cooling / grill etc so we will see..

Keep you posted and thanks for the kind words!

Regards

Brendan

Brendan,

Give us a yell when you get to the "best of the West" and we'll see if we can catch up.

Have a good and safe trip

You have a great trip Why not have a beer or two in Perth and let us know how the T is going when you reach our city? :D

The smile will get real big with all those k's