Hoping to avoid Iran due to the current political situation. Which borders did you have to bribe people at? As for prices, how much did the trip to India cost you and how much of that is fuel?

and re: trabant - someone already suggested it to me

No bribing at borders. We had a plate made up with the engine code and chassis number on it that was there to look official and speed up the process, it was the India border I found the spanners had put the wrong engine code on it That took some explaining. Overall I guess it cost 2ish grand without random extravagances. I didn't have a credit card at the time, I recommend you do what I did if you havn't and get one and put it somewhere save away from your wallet and passport. There was enough on there that if I needed to get 2 people back to the UK without asking too many questions I could.

The nearest I think I came to having to bribe anyone was a military police chap who wanted to come to the UK. He'd heard that UK jobs and UK women were both easy and allowed us easy passage if he had my contact details so I could help him get a visa. Was probably the hairest it got for us, Nick had one chap to deal with in the Rover whilst I was taken to the police Hilux and not really given an option. Just as well he didn't have too much of a clue what a UK phone number should look like.

I mean I COULD remake the VIN number but what would be the problem with just cleaning the current one?

For the Carnette. Most of the countries I went through have something like 400% import tax so they want to make sure the car is only passing, not staying. Border will want to see vin and engine numbers at each border and each country at each border. Our theory was just to make it easier for them to find them to save mucking about under cars and taking forever

Well number is on a plate facing upwards under the bonnet in the 240. It's also very very clean, I don't think it'll be a problem