Land Rover Drives Discoveries From Birmingham, UK, to Beijing

To prove its worth to the Chinese market, Land Rover set out with a group of four Discoveries on a 50 day, 8000 mile expedition through 13 different countries. One of these trucks, and the one displayed at the show in China, was the millionth Land Rover Discovery produced. The journey was also charitable and raised money for the International Federation of Red Cross. 

The trucks set off from Birmingham, UK, to Geneva for the Geneva Motor Show where they were put on display. From there they drove over the Alps to Austria to Hungary and then a trip through Chernobyl. From there they drove through Ukraine where they visited a former-Soviet submarine base nestled into the cliffs by the Black Sea. They then drove to Moscow and then on to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad. After Russia, the trucks made their way to the Aral Sea and Uzbekistan. 

Eventually, they came to the Torugart Pass, which is a 3.75km high road that allowed the trucks into China. It was closed due to snowfall, and they waited for three days for the snow to diminish enough to get through. The route runs about 400km and connects Kyrgyzstan and China in the Tian Shan mountain range. There were still 2,000 miles to go through China. The cars rolled into Tiananmen square. It was on display at the Land Rover booth during the Auto Salon China in Beijing. 

During the course of the expedition, the trucks made stops to raise money for the Red Cross. Its goal was to raise £1,000,000, but Land Rover has not announced how much they actually received yet. 

You can see an annotated Google Map of their route here.