Arctic Trucks

A team of four Toyota Hiluxs have completed a trip of over 5000km from Novo, a Russian Scientific Station in Antarctica to the Geographic South Pole and back again, making them the first 4x4s to reach the South Pole. The return journey of 2500km from the South Pole to Novo Station was completed in a record 8 days and 17 hours.

 

The expedition is a joint venture between the UK based Amundsen Omega South Pole Race and Icelandic company Arctic Trucks. Company directors Tony Martin and Emil Grimmson started on the venture after the enormous success of their joint expedition with Top Gear in 2007, which sent the first 4x4s to the Magnetic North Pole - driven by Jeremy Clarkson and James May, and filmed for the Top Gear Polar Special. ! Following the success of this ground breaking trip, the pair decided to start out on an even more daring trip to Antarctica - into unknown territory in one of the world's most hostile environments - the coldest and driest place on Earth.

 

After learning from the 2007 Top Gear North Pole trip, Arctic Trucks modified the same vehicles - Toyota Hiluxs, for use on the Antarctic Plateau, including over 300 hours of work per car. The  expedition provided safety , medical and media support for the Amundsen Omega South Pole Race, including film crew access to UK based production company Two Four, filming the race for the BBC series 'On Thin Ice' featuring James Cracknell and Ben Fogle, and a Norwegian film crew filming a documentary for NRK.

 

The 4x4s departed from Novo Station on on 21st December 2008, and arrived at the South Pole on 21st January 2009. After remaining with all of the race competitors at the South Pole until their flight home arrived, the vehicles set off on the return journey at 02:00am on 30th January 2008, arriving at 1700 on 7th February 2009. The team were greeted at Novo station with cheers, flares and champagne to celebrate the success of the expedition. Tony Martin commented "It is an incredible achievement, we are breaking boundaries here, no one has ever completed a trip like this before, we are making history".

 

The arduous route to the Pole included extremely hostile terrain, travelling through crevasse fields and mountains, and following an unusually high amount of snowfall, the 4x4s encountered deep snow on the plateau, where temperatures plummeted below -40C still air, and -60C with wind chill. In just two months, Novo received the same amount of snow fall they would normally receive in five years. Arctic Truck's Driver-mechanics Gísli Jónsson and Hjalti Vigfús Hjaltason were on hand to provide constant modifications during the trip, including fixing break downs of five transfer cases, six wheel axles and six shock absorbers.

 

The team are now safely at Novo station, waiting for a flight to Cape Town before returning to the UK and Iceland. They hope this trip will open a brand new method of travel in Antarctica, encouraging people to use 4x4s as an alternative to current methods of transport as they are cleaner, and 5 times more fuel efficient than other vehicles presently used. In the future they hope to join with scientific research expeditions.

The group has reached the final destination! They arrived in Novo at 18.30 tonight and were welcomed as heroes. The people from the stations around were waiting with champagne, vodka, and fireworks. Those who know this environment realize how big accomplishment this expedition is.

“The group is now playing poker to decide on the order we get to take a shower”, Hjalti said. “The problem is that there is only shower here and there is only 100 liters of warm water in the heating container. Those who loose won't be able to take a shower until they get to Cape Town on Tuesday or Wednesday”, Hjalti added laughing. There is real good spirit in the group and they are all extremely happy that have reached their goal safe and sound. Hjalti sent warm wishes from the group, especially to their co-workers at Arctic Trucks, without their support they never could have done this.

The plan is to fly from Novo to Capetown on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the weather. They are expected back to Iceland on February 16th or 17th.

The Arctic Trucks staff congratulates the group on this fantastic achievement. We are all extremely proud of our people! 

The group did not make it to ETL last night, as they had intended, because the transfer box in Tony‘s car broke. They have still 71 kilometres to go before they get to ETL. They have already built a new box, which is made from parts from three transfer boxes. The altitude and the extreme cold did not help with the repair, which actually would be quite difficult for most people under the best circumstances! They took all the time they need to make the repair and tried to find out why the transfer box keeps failing. They have not been able to pin down any explanation but this time they put in a piece that Emil brought with him, that will lock the gear. Hopefully this will help!

The group hopes to get further than ETL tonight. The goal is to get down from this high altitude and to lower temperature, today it was 32 degrees below. Everything will be much easier when they get down and if everything goes as we hope and nothing will fail, they should be able to get all the way to the mountains. There the nature is much more beautiful and if everything goes as planned they should be able to drive to Novo from there in 4 hours.

The group can of course feel the altitude and the cold, but nobody has been ill. Everybody has been able to rest and they are all well fed. Therefore there should be no obstacle in continuing this journey.

The airplane from Novo arrived to the Southpole early in the morning.  After the airplane left again later in the day with all the competitors,  Hjalti, Sara, Tony and Emil prepared and loaded  the cars for  the journey back to Novo. Everybody is in good condition and looking forward to the trip. They expect to meet the other group (Gisli, Kenny, Deadre and Victor) within 2-3 days at the fuel drop. The sky is clear with temperatures from -29˚ celsious with the wind factor down to -40˚.

January 29th, 2009,

Emil

Hjalti and Tony are still waiting at the Pole for the parts to arrive. It will arrive with the last plane that will transfer the competitors to Novo. Hjalti has already done all possible preparation work. They are planning to fix the cars quickly and turn back to Novo as quickly as they can.

The temperature at the Pole is now close to 40 degrees below with some wind. It gets colder quickly those days because winter is coming. The last two weeks the temperature has dropped by 10 degrees.  Hjalti and Tony are comfortable and have been able to rest for the last few days. But they are eager to get going again!

Gísli and Kenny are still at the fuel drop. They have been able to dig up 67 barrels of oil at that were buried into the snow when the Russians dropped them from the airplane. They are comfortable while waiting for the last plane to arrive on the way to the Pole. 

People have been able to rest a little the last few days, after some tough weeks.

Emil left Cape Town at 8 o´clock this morning, heading for Novo. He had some busy days in Cape Town arranging spare parts to bring with him. It is mostly axles and wheel bearings that have been breaking down, due to much too heavy load on the cars on the way to the Pole. It created problems because they had to leave some of the spare parts behind to make the cars lighter plus it was bad for the cars. If everything goes as planned Emil will be at the Pole in 2 or 3 days, but he will get there with the last plane. He and Victor from the Novo station will drive back with the others.

The airplane from Novo has arrived at the Pole. The pilots needs to rest after such a long fligh so they will not return until tomorrow morning, if the weather permits. Gísli and Kenny were ready with the fuel when the plane landed by the fuel drop and helped them refill.

Gisli and Kenny are already well on their way to the fuel drop, it‘s an 8-900 km drive for them.  They will try to be there tomorrow morning but if weather allows, the first flight to the South Pole will take of from Novo tomorrow morning to pick up most of the competitors.   The plane will land at the fuel drop and needs 20 barrels of fuel to continue to the South Pole.  The flight each way will take about 10 hours calculating 2.5 hours in refueling of the plane but the plane has to refuel at the fuel drop each way  The second flight to pick up the rest of the competitors, the BBC film crew and the Norwegian film crew is scheduled the 28th.   We expect getting new rear axles with this flight.  Again Gisli and Kenny will need to have fuel ready for them as well.  Once all the competitors have left we will change the axles in the two cars that are still here at the South Pole before driving back to Novo.   Gisli and Kenny will wait for us at the fuel drop and we will all drive together from there to Novo.