Four Shropshire “petrol heads” are preparing to travel more than 1,000 miles in a car costing just £250 to raise money for a Shrewsbury charity.

The Barcelona Bangers Rally 2011 starts on May 20, in Calais and takes in Auvergne, the Millau Bridge, Nimes, the Pyrenees and Andorra before finally reaching Barcelona just three days later on May 22.

Richard Ellis, Jeff Davies, Colin Fitch and Ray Salter, who all live in Shrewsbury, are funding the expense of the rally and will be donating all other cash raised through the event to the Severn Hospice.

The four Caterpillar Remanufacturing Services employees have already received pledges of nearly £2,000.

But they are keen to raise as much as possible for the hospice and are asking local businesses to sponsor a panel on their car.

“The bigger the donation, the bigger the panel,” said Mr Davies.

“We’ve bought a BMW 7 Series car which has 170,000 miles on the clock but we are all good at tinkering so we are hoping that we’ll be able to fix any problems we may have on the way.”

A number of local firms have already pledged their support for the team, including Kaiser Cranes, Billcar Engineering and First Car.

The Shrewsbury fundraisers dubbed “Team Transporters” decided to take part in the event after Mr Fitch was searching for a car on eBay and saw the rally being advertised.

Mr Ellis said: “We’ve had a brilliant response from our family, friends and colleagues and we would like to thank them for all their contributions so far.

Anyone wishing to sponsor “Team Transporters” can contact them via e-mail on Richard.ellis4@virgin.net