A couple from Shepherdswell are setting out on a fundraising challenge in a classic 1971 Mini on Monday.

Pat and Stephen King have been fundraising all year for Variety, the UK children’s charity which provides Sunshine Coaches and electric wheelchairs, equipping children’s hospitals and youth clubs.

They are taking part in the 2014 Italian Job rally and set off from the Port of Dover on Monday, October 20.

Mrs King said: “We’ve been talking about doing this event for years and finally decided that it’s now or never.

“I just hope that, as Steve has built a beautiful rally car, complete with roll cage and no mod cons that I can keep my end of the bargain and read the road book properly so we don’t get lost.”

With around 50 other Mini’s they will travel to Trento in Italy where they hope to brighten up the lives of children living in an SOS village.

There are 547 villages like this all over the world, which provide long-term care for almost 62,000 children from babies to teenagers who may have been orphaned, abandoned or in difficult family situations.

Mrs King, a publishing officer at the University of Kent, explained that a group of teddies will be accompanying them on their journey. They have been donated from colleagues at the university and purchased from the PDSA charity shop in Dover.

The couple have paid their own expenses and raised more than £3,200 for Variety, through sponsorship, donations and fundraising activities.

The journey will see them drive from Calais to Spa, Belgium, then on to the Nurburgring, Germany and Munich to the rally start in Trento, Italy on Thursday, October 23.

Mrs King added: “Apart from the visit to the children’s village, a high point is that we’ll get to drive on the Lingotto test track on the roof of the former Fiat factory – it featured in the original, 1969 film, when Michael Caine says: ‘Do get a move on, we can’t drive around here all day.’”

Follow their progress via their Facebook page Kings on the Run and for donations visit www.justgiving.com/kingsontherun.