AutoblogGreen already covered the Europe-to-Mongolia Rally but since these guys will be running on Straight Vegetable Oil in the (sort of) competition, we and our colleagues at Autoblog en Español decided to get an interview with them. We talked about the movie they'll be making and just how they'll find their way without knowing a single word of most languages in the counties they'll be driving through.

AutoblogGreen: We're interviewing Pablo Ferrari, the director of the documentary film that will be shot during the adventures of the EcoChallenge team and director himself of the team. So please, Pablo, make us a short summary about you and your adventure.

Pablo Ferrari: The EcoChallenge team is one of the contestants of the Mongolian Rally. This is an non-competitive adventure event designed to raise money for different charities working in Mongolia in development projects. The rally itself starts either in London or Madrid, has a checkpoint in Prague and then we can choose among four routes to reach Ulanbataar, the capital of Mongolia.

ABG: The rally itself states that contestants should not use big cars or SUVs, actually they demand normal small cars under 1 liter....

PF: Yeah - The rally wants to raise money for charity, not destroy the environment polluting with big engines. In our case, an exception has been made, we use a 1.4 but they consider us "original" and with social interest. Our car works with straight vegetable oil, the same you can use at home for cooking - and better if it's already been used.

The interview continues after the jump.

Two Spanish youngsters will try to reach Ulan Bator (Mongolia) driving a car only powered with Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO). Their plan is to fill up the tank at restaurants and supermarkets they'll find on their route. The car will participate in the Mongolian rally, a charity race that will start in Madrid (Spain) on July the 20th and will cross half of Europe, then Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistand, Kazakhstan (among others) until their arrival in Mongolia.

The chosen vehicle is a small VW Lupo 1.4 TDI with 75 HP. The engine has been slightly modified to use vegetable oil, either new or used before for cooking and will incorporate filters to avoid any debris to be introduced into the engine.

The rules for this charity rally state that the competing cars should be low-performance production models (the other 250 contestants use regular gasoline cars) and all the collected money will be given to non-profit organisations (via justigiving.com and cibersolidaridad.org) which will use the funds to promote developing projects in Mongolia. This adventure will be filmed into a documentary.

[Source: Energías Renovables]