News: Jet fuel powered Hilux crosses Antarctic

KryptonZone

KryptonZone

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I'm sure you all remember the heroic crossing of the Arctic by Clarkson and May in the Arctic Truck prepared Hilux. Well, they've gone for it again, but this time, in the Antarctic. One part of the expedition was to support the centenary ski race of the Amundsen-Scott race for the South Pole. They also supported supplying scientists drilling in Lake Vostok trying to uncover 25 million years of Earth's history. Best part? The engine and transmission remained unchanged, and it was powered by jet fuel. They covered 70,000 km in total and three Hilux did 9,500 km each setting some world records.

100 years ago, Amundsen and Scott set off on their epic race across the Antarctic ? at the time, one of the least explored and least understood places on the planet, and still is one of the most hostile ? on their way to claim the South Pole. In the past few months, a team of Toyota Hilux, Land Cruiser and Tacoma vehicles prepared by Arctic Trucks (the guys behind the Hilux used by Top Gear to reach the North Pole) followed the footsteps of the pioneers and broke a few records along the way.
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Toyota Europe Blog

Press release

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Update (04/04/12): Here's a new video highlight of the Hilux's accomplishments since 2007 when it first made it to the Magnetic North Pole (Jezza and May's exepdition).

 
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Funny to think that you can "simply" drive to the south pole no problem while having a nice mixed drink now when it used to be such a massive pain and people died doing it.
 
Having been there, I can honestly say that Antarctica is wonderful. And yes, I do realise the double standards in this comment having used a shed-load of fuel myself to get there... I just hope any exploration is done sensitively. This world is a precious place.
 
If people were serious about Global Warming they'd stop people burning down the tropical forests - too hard. So they'd rather whinge on about cars and get people to build Nuclear Power Stations. Nor do not spend money developing benign technologies.

This ticks me off something rotten.
 
Can somebody translate that for me?


Please?
 
I find it amusing that they refer to being jet fueled in the title of their press release. After all, Jet-A and diesel are nearly identical.
 
Makes it sound all fancy and awesome.
 
Hate to burst your bubble but jet fuel is essentially Diesel with less BTU.

EDIT: sonza68 beat me to it.
 
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Cobol74 said:
If people were serious about Global Warming they'd stop people burning down the tropical forests - too hard. So they'd rather whinge on about cars and get people to build Nuclear Power Stations. Nor do not spend money developing benign technologies.

This ticks me off something rotten.
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"Benign technologies" so far have pretty much proven to be uneconomical and not work.

sonza68 said:
I find it amusing that they refer to being jet fueled in the title of their press release. After all, Jet-A and diesel are nearly identical.
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The only practical difference is that Jet-A is more tolerant of lower temperatures and it doesn't gel up, even at -65F.
 
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