Maybe I'm just too cautious but I think you're taking a pretty big risk driving something doesn't have an MOT a long distance even if you've legitimately booked it in for an MOT when it gets there. Presumbly you have some idea of when it was last MOT'd?
IMHO, you have to bite the bullet - you either buy a road legal car and pay a bit more (which is what I did) or you buy a car with no MOT and transport it which probably then means it costs you more than the road legal car.
That's my 2 cents...
