Jet-Fueled Toyota Hiluxs Drive 70,000km over Antarctica

Toyota teamed with Extreme World Races to drive 70,000km over four months making it the longest polar expedition in history in terms of distance. The trucks were prepared by Arctic Trucks. 

This trip did have a purpose beyond driving around the Antarctic; from November 2011 to February 2012 ten Hiluxes set up a fuel depot, installed a weather station and provided other support for scientific expeditions. 

The expedition crossed Antarctica twice. A second part of the expedition was when three Hiluxes, two of them modified to be six-wheel drive, each covered 9,500km.

The trucks had a variety of modifications to deal with the -50°C weather and extreme terrain. They were fitted with a 280l fuel tank, modified suspension, crawler gears, larger tires and slight engine changes to accept Jet A-1 fuel. The six-wheeled Hiluxes had 800l fuel tanks. Other than the modification to accept jet fuel and the crawler gear, the engine and transmission on the vehicles remained unchanged. 

Toyota is preparing a video of this year's expedition that will be added to this post when it is released. In the mean time, this is not the first year that the Hilux has made an Antarctic expedition. Here is a video of the 2010-2011 trip.