To Antarctica Again
Following a very successful trip to the magnetic north pole with Top Gear last year Arctic Trucks is preparing cars to serve as a support vehicles in the “Amundsen Omega 3 Pole Race” to the South Pole starting in December this year.
This is not the first time for Arctic Trucks to send vehicles to Antarctica, in 1997/1998 Arctic Trucks sent two heavily modified Toyota Land Cruiser 80 on a very successful mission to Antarctica with the Swedish scientific Polar Institute.
Two cars will follow the competitors as support vehicles and the other two vehicles will carry a film crew. Arctic Trucks will send two driver/mechanic experts one with the support team and one with the film crew. The vehicles will drive over 5 thousand km from the Russian station Novo on the coast to the South Pole and back. This is going to be great challenges as the vehicles will need to find a way up the mountains above the Novo station that reach over 3000 meters, crossing moving glaciers, with lots of crevasse and pulling many tons of fuel and supplies. Once up on the high plate the vehicles will need to cross a huge area, with largely unknown conditions, making a film and supporting the ski race part of the way.
The main reason the organizers for this ski race asked Arctic Trucks to supply cars for this project comes after their experience seeing the performance of these vehicles during The Top Gear polar special program. The belt driven vehicles have a long history in Antarctica and have proven their worth but fuel consumption can be many times that of the cars and the cost of the vehicle is higher.