mothballed Cummins LTA10-B 290H engines. These were intended to be used as part of articulated Ikarus 280.60 buses destined for export to Ecuador in 1988, but they were damaged after cargo mishandling, and thus weren't put to use. Ikarus offered one of the engines to the team, but couldn't guarantee providing the required engineering documentation to mount it in the vehicle in a timely manner. At the suggestion of the mechanic, they petitioned Ikarus leadership to allow EAG to mount the engine on an ad-hoc basis, which was greenlighted, although with Ikarus not providing any warranty for the work. Thus the engine was mounted in March 1991, and later in May it was tested at the European center of Cummins in Frankfurt, where it was granted a worldwide warranty by the company. The work required the team to buy replacement parts abroad to fix the external damage to the engine, as well as using additional parts produced by the Csepel Automobile Factory so that the unit, originally designed to be mounted upright as a vertical engine, could have been mounted underfloor as a horizontal engine, a practice which was standard at Ikarus. The team took the bus on a second, extended test drive in the form of a trip to Albania in the summer of 1991, using the call sign ZA1HA. The country was chosen because of the similarities between its environments and those of Eastern countries and the trip was considered a success. After this, the interior was furnished with the help of the Lenti Wood and Metal Industry Cooperative of Lenti. Later that year, the design of the interior won an award at the 1991 Fall Budapest International Fair (BNV). In the days preceding their departure for the expedition, they received pots and other kitchen items from Vasedény, cameras from Ofotért, and film rolls from Forte Photochemistry Industrial as part of sponsorship. The goal (as stated on their QSL cards) was set to "travel kilometres round the Globe by a Hungarian bus in two years" and to "make QSOs [radio contacts] during the journey across more than 30 countries of five continents". The expedition's motto became "Around the World in a Bus". Crew The expedition's members were three licensed amateur radio operators from Hungary: Gábor Kovács (nicknamed "Gabi", call sign: HG5BKG):Kovács was the organizer, spokesman, team leader, navigator and first driver of the expedition. He was a bus