Manheim and Commercial Motor raise money for Macmillan

To help raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support, Commercial Motor and Manheim Remarketing joined forces to snap up a non-runner, give it some TLC and then resell it.

It sounds straightforward enough; buy a non-runner, turn it around, sell it, give the proceeds to charity. In the first part of CM’s two-part feature (CM, 20 October 2011 and 1 December 2011) CM duly went online and snapped up a 2008-registered Volkswagen Transporter T28 with 93,500 miles on the clock for £4,000 and then revamped it.

The clutch was fixed, making it runner, body trims, grille, bumper, handles and mirrors were all fully colour coded in white to match the van, a handful of dents were repaired, and then brand new alloy wheels, colour coded rear spoiler and chrome side bars were added before 12-months MOT and mini-service turned it something well desirable.

James Davis, director of commercial vehicles at Manheim Remarketing (pictured left wearing the cap), says very few vans enjoy this level of ‘blinging’ before auction as this often remains in the realms of a trader’s activity when looking to retail the vans to an end user. “Manheim Remarketing is regularly asked to assess non runners if their mechanical condition is unknown to the vendor. In cases where the repair cost will see the van make more as a runner vendors often give us the green light to precede,” he says.

With two registered owners the vehicle was entered into a sale by Hitachi Capital Fleet Solutions. With a faulty clutch it meant, for heath and safety reasons, the van could not be driven through the hall and was declared a non-runner.

Once it was blinged up VW Transporter T28 was used as a support vehicle on a coast-to-coast charity cycle ride between Hull and Liverpool (which took place on 19-20 September 2011). This included 18 cyclists covering more than 1,210 miles between them negotiating 38 roundabouts and 78 sets of traffic lights.

The peloton, which downed 60-litres of water en route and suffered just two punctures, rolled through Leeds and Haydock auction sites selling off more things, like football shirts and sponsored cricket bats. While the cyclists recuperated at Haydock with soup, tea and cakes the van went under the hammer for £6,900, raising £2,900.

The buyers were Norman Law Motors, a new and used CV dealer based in Colne, Lancashire. This contributed to a total of more than £16,100 raised for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Cyclists included Paul Owens (Automarque), Scott Holland (Hitachi) and Kevin Gaughan (Westway Nissan), with the rest from Manheim; Matt Davock, Simon Joyce, Jen O’Brien, Jamie Scott, Duncan Kirkbride, Nigel Paling, Stacy Pepworth, Paul Hill, Dave Anthony, Craig Ashford, Jeremy Lawson, Mark Nicoll, Emma Plant, Jo Taylor and Kate Loughe.

The support team included Scott Butcher (Ashington Autos), Andy Paine (Perkins Garage), James Dean (Automarque), Kevin Swallow (Commercial Motor), and Manheim’s James Davis, Noreen Foy, Gill Raine and Mark Elliott.

Companies that have helped set this up include Hitachi Capital, Volkswagen CV, C Walton, G4S Cash Collections, Corprotex Apparel, Foxprint and Signlex.

To donate go to www.justgiving.com/manheimbikeride

Good work, team…