9 Astonishing Gumball 3000 Facts And Stats
Money talks
The most valuable grid is thought to have been on the 2006 rally, which featured: 13 McLaren-Mercedes SLRs, three Bugatti Veyrons, a Ferrari Enzo, F50, 275 GTC and 250 California, plus a selection of (marginally) more common Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Aston Martins and Rolls Royces. Total value? By Gumball founder Maximillion Cooper’s own estimate, well over $100 million…
Globetrotters
In total, the Gumball 3000 has visited 38 different countries. In other words, around 20 per cent of the world’s nations.
Heavy lifting
One famous feature to have cropped up a few times on rallies over the years has been the use of Antonov An-124 transport planes. These 175 tonne, 68 metre-long monsters are the biggest military transports in the world, so as you’d expect, chartering one isn’t cheap.
The price varies from year to year due to the ever changing price of aviation fuel, but Maximillion told us that the price for the 2006 rally was $1 million per plane. Oh, and they hired three of them, carrying 40 cars each…
Dat mileage tho
If you’re looking at the highest combined mileage on an event, you want to look to the 2004 rally. With 220 cars (including support vehicles) it had the most vehicles present for any Gumball, and when you consider they clocked 3000 miles each, you get a combined result of 660,000 miles.
Slow and steady wins the...rally?
The prize for slowest car almost certainly goes to the 29bhp Dukes of Hazzard-style Citroen 2CV seen on the 2004 rally. Although Cooper concedes it could well be a tie between that and an ice cream van that once entered, since “neither could do more than 55mph!”
No garage queens here
Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, we have the McLaren F1 LM. It’s almost certainly the most valuable car to have entered: last year one of these cars - of which only five were made - sold for a staggering $13.75 million.
Oldtimer
So, we’ve told you the slowest car and the most valuable, but what about the oldest? That’ll be a 1929 Bentley 4½ ‘Blower’, entered by the late Lord Montagu of Beaulieu in 2001. He was also the oldest driver to take part that year, at 76 years of age.
Rally veteran
Other than Cooper, only one man has entered all 17 rallies: designer and explorer Karta Healy. He’s the guy third in from the right, standing next to Cooper, and interestingly, he’s also the son of the founder of Kettle Chips.
Assuming he completed every mile of every rally (he hasn’t quite been able to do this thanks to missing a chunk of the 2005 event after a particularly horrific motorbike accident), that’d give him 51,000 rally miles under his belt.
Getting emotional
Amazingly, only one Gumball team has so far had the inspired/stupid idea to cover their car in a bunch of emojis: us. Yep, that’s right, TeamCT is entering the 2016 Gumball 3000 using Adnan’s very own Nissan GT-R, now renamed as the EmojiTR.
Want to follow our rally exploits? Make sure you download the Car Throttle App - now available on iOS as well as Android - and you won’t miss a thing.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I’ve always wondered why it’s called the “Gumball” rally
Me2
2 out 9 ‘’astonishing’’ facts is about CT… Cheeky bastards :p
1 out of 9, we didn’t count the interview :P
Even cheekier than Disklok!
I assume Adnan wasnt happy to find that you had covered his R35 in emojis..
But what about the cheapest car ever entered. What does it take to enter and will they let a geo metro in?
It takes about £60-70k if memory serves me correctly, and Team Galag are taking a couple of Yugos this year which were something like £3000 when new. Probably worth about 20 quid nowadays.
gumball will let any car in, the entry fee is £40949.62 GBP ($60,000 USD), plus petrol probably looking at around about £1000 GBP ($1500 USD) and then all the little things, food, drink along the way, insurance etc, car costs, maintenance (tyres,servicing before etc) for those who dont want to spend as much money, you could look into a similar event called the cannon run its much cheaper because its not got as much media coverage, but it runs along the same lines.
gumball = £45000-£50000
cannonrun = £1000 PP so roughly £5000 not including car that is
http://www.thecannonrun.com/
‘In total, the Gumball 3000 has visited 38 different countries. In other words, around 20 per cent of the world’s nations.’ I do hope that the Gumball 3000 will be in Indonesia sometime in the future…
Gumball Rally stage - Jakarta Outer Ringroad
The slowest and most time-consuming rally ever held.
for me the best team or the funniest is CT
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/wemld2r/
Strictly speaking the An-225 is the biggest cargo plane :p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya
Well, it could’ve been worse with the Antonovs. They could’ve charted the even bigger An-225, which is the heaviest aircraft in the world. Only 2 of them exist, and they are used to piggy-back Russian space shuttles (like the U.S. does with a 747).
Only one An-225 has ever existed and no more piggy backs since the cold war, it can be hired just like the 124’s, but probably a bit more expensive. Another one was planned but was cancelled :)
so wegetting vlogs of the rally day by day ?