It's not often that you'll see an Aston-Martin looking this dirty but it was all for a good cause. Two Brits, Richard Meredith and Phil Colley, had just completed a 10,000-mile trip over some of the world's worst roads to promote road safety. The Make Roads Safe project's aim is to, as Classic Driver magazine wrote, "make the world more aware of the plight of mainly low-income countries where road deaths amongst the young are often killing as many as more familiar causes such as TB or malaria." This was no "great driving roads" jaunt. The pair crossed, says Classic Driver, the "East China Sea into South Korea, spending 18 days travelling through China, then entering Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, reaching the end of the Asian Highway in Istanbul, before completing their drive through Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, France and the UK."

The Aston-Martin V-8 Vantage, which had 100,000 miles on the clock before setting out, completed the trip with no mechanical failures, prompting Chief Executive Officer Dr Ulrich Bez to boast that "this journey has been the V8 Vantage's toughest test to date, and reiterates that the Vantage is a truly useable and durable sports car." The standard Bridgestone tires ran flawlessly with no punctures; oil, water, and gas were the only additions during the trip. Preparations before departing consisted of a regular servicing and the addition of a sump guard. Meredith and Colley had the support of the United Nations, the Federation Internationale d'Automobile (FIA) Foundation and UNICEF. The car will be auctioned for charity at the end of the year.

[photo: Classic Driver]