A CHARITY shop in Kenilworth is set to make a fast buck following a star donation.
Staff at the Scope shop got the day off to a speedy start when they opened a bag of donations and found a racing overall worn by former F1 racing driver Ralf Schumacher, younger brother of seven time champion Michael.
After getting over the initial shock of the anonymous donation, sleuth shop manager Amanda Tucker was quick off the grid to do some research.
She sent photos to the Williams racing team hq and they confirmed the suit was worn by the German driver, who won six grand prix, during the 1999 season.
When verifying the racing suit, Jonathan Williams of Williams Heritage, said: “The Williams F1 logo is in place of the usual Winfield logo, which indicates this overall was for races where tobacco advertising was prohibited.
“The white section on the lower torso is without a logo here. It would .usually have been occupied by the Veltins beer logo.
“Only France during this time prohibited both alcohol and tobacco advertising, so these overalls are French Grand Prix and testing specification.”
The Talisman Square store had never had a donation like it and the suit is being auctioned.
Amanda admitted said: “I had to do a double take when I first saw the suit coming out of the bag.
“Donations like this don’t come into the shop every day and we are truly thankful to our kind, mystery donor. I felt like we’d passed the chequered flag.
“Donations are the lifeline of charity shops and this should fetch a swift price when we put it into auction. The funds raised will help Scope support the 13.9 million disabled people and their families in the county.
“If anyone has unwanted items at home, Scope charity shops can sell them. They don’t need to have belonged to a racing legend – although we’d be very happy to have those items too.”
Go to @scope on Twitter for further details of the auction.
