Thirty men, twelve old cars and the open road. Even before the start of the first South African Bull Run you could sense something big was about to happen. Gerrie van Eeden went along on this epic journey to Verneukpan and beyond. And yes, they will do it again.

If you were recently travelling through the Karoo and saw men with gas masks, white overalls and a paint-splashed convoy of cars older than thirty years on the roadside, you weren’t dreaming. 

They were competitors in the first South African Bull Run, the unofficial brother of an episode of the British TV programme Top Gear, wherein Jeremy Clarkson and his fellow presenters crossed the Makgadikgadi Pan and the Okavango in wrecks cheaper than R15 000.

Hermie Koen and Rieger van Rooyen hit on the idea. They planned to crisscross the Western and Northern Cape’s gravel roads in four-door sedans older than 30 years that cost no more than R15 000. They challenged their friends to join them.

The group grew from an initial four competitors to the twelve cars that left Cape Town early one winter’s morning. 

Each car had a name. Each one had a story too. There was an old hearse, somebody’s mother’s old Chev and a canary yellow Peugeot station wagon with grass on the roof.

The oldest wheels was a 1956 Wolseley of the brothers Michael and Greg Cummings. It was the cheapest car too, and apart from a flat wheel, the only one that gave no problems. They had bought the car, the shocks of which were shot, for less than R3000 and simply fitted new tyres. The corrugated gravel roads shook the dust out of every crack.

Then there were two Mercedes-Benzes (a 1971 280 S and a 1981 200), a 1972 Chev Kommando, a 1976 Chev Constantia, a 1976 Datsun 300C, a 1977 Ford Granada, a 1978 Toyota Cressida station wagon, a 1976 Peugeot 404 station wagon, a 1984 Mitsubishi Tredia and a 1966 Volvo 122S. 

I went along in relative comfort in a Land Cruiser bakkie with Rohan Schoeman. We were the support crew and the only vehicle that had some confidence that we wouldn’t run into trouble.

The Cruiser towed a trailer that could carry a car. It also carried boxes of stationery and clothes to be handed out to schools along the way, a spare wheel for each car, jerry cans and tools.

Day 1: Cape Town to Calvinia

Spacemen in the Karoo

The first stop is at the home near Paarl of the rally legend Sarel van der Merwe. He shakes his head in disbelief when Ivan Britz and his co-driver, Dirk Joubert, get out of Dustbin (the Datsun 300C) dressed in safari suits. They look like the government ministers of old, on holiday...

It is something to behold - twelve vehicles covered in colourful stickers, some with themes like Blue Bulls, zef (Zefmobile) and rally (Witwolf had some rally car characteristics). And they all contain everything needed to survive for six days – from fridges, bedrolls and folding tables to a surf board. It’s not something you see every day. Not even if your name is SuperVan.

We continue in the direction of Ceres to our starting point – the R355 Tanqua Karoo road. It is South Africa’s longest uninterrupted gravel road. And the road’s shale is notorious for cutting tyres like butter. Now I understand why the guys insisted on extra spare wheels on the trailer.

Earlier, Rieger van Rooyen, Hermie Koen’s co-driver in Witwolf (the Volvo 122S) laid down the convoy rules. They drive in front and we, the support crew, at the back. And if you want to call someone on the radio, you use the name of the car - Witwolf, Dustbin, Red Barron, The Undertaker; it sounds as if we are going to war…