A group of friends who paid just £100 for an old banger have returned from a 1,500-mile drive through Europe which they hope will raise £2,000 for charity.

Gareth Hopkins, of Mayfield Avenue, Grove, and his three friends painted their elderly Jaguar to look like a 1940s Spitfire fighter plane for the journey to Naples in Italy.

They had to leave the car behind in Naples to be scrapped after a wheel bearing failed as they neared the city.

Mr Hopkins, 32, and his friends David Old, 29, Garth Harris, also 29, and Paul Dollimore, 30, whose team name was Bangers and Smash, have raised £1,600 for three chosen charities, and are confident the final total will top the £2,000 mark.

A third of the money is being donated by Mr Hopkins to help victims of the cancer that killed his sister Freyja, who was 16 when she died of leukaemia in 1997. Before she died, she helped establish Freyja's Fund, a charity to support the children's oncology ward at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. Since then, more than £15,000 has been raised.

The other two charities which will benefit are Oxford's Sobell House hospice and a project to protect red squirrels.

Mr Hopkins said: "To date, Bangers and Smash have raised over £1,600 for our three chosen charities and we're hopeful that we may even raise £2000.

"Anyone wishing to make a donation can do so via The Bell, Main Street, Grove."