Kumho Tyres have helped Volkswagen, German adventurer Rainer Zeitlow, his compatriot and photographer Marius Biela, along with Aussie expedition member Brad Howe, capture their second Guinness World Record in the span of just eight weeks.
Zeitlow and Biela drove a Kumho equipped Volkswagen Amarok across 10 Australian deserts in a 6412 km torture test that covered 1000km per day in just under a week to capture the fastest crossing of all ten deserts.
The reliability and durability of the Kumho MT71s was critical in achieving the record with the team suffering just one tyre puncture across the tough, weeklong odyssey.
Rainer and Marius in the Amarok ute had to press on during the attempt, starting at Maree in the far north of South Australia before crossing the Great Victoria, Great Sandy, Tanami, Simpson, Gibson, Little Sandy, Strzelecki, Sturt’s Stony, Tirari and Pedirka deserts, before arriving in Alice Springs at the conclusion.
Covering 1000km per day is a tough enough task on sealed roads but when having to maintain that pace on outback dirt roads and across trackless sand dunes in rough country, the record breakers could not afford to lose time with lots of tyre failures or punctures.
According to Rainer Zeitlow the one tyre puncture was the result of a small human error on his part that he believes no other tyre could have survived undamaged.
“It was a silly move from me and I am sure no other tyre could have survived it,” said Zeitlow.
“The Kumhos were superb and gave us confidence during what was a very rapid 6400km journey across ten deserts, just as they were on our previous Guinness Record run two months ago on the HP71 EVs,” he said.
On the first record run, which concluded at the end of September, Zietlow and Biela, drove a standard Vokswagen ID.4 GTX electric SUV, to establish the Guiness World Record for the largest GPS drawing made by a Battery Electric Vehicle, inscribing “70 Year VeeDub” on a 23,849km journey across the Australia.
The ID.4 electric car ran on Kumho HP71 EV road tyres, tackling everything Australia’s outback could throw at them on that trip.
On the Volkswagen Amarok Desert trip the two Amarok’s both carried four spare tyres and apart from a precautionary change mid-way through, putting the spares on both cars, the small puncture was the only issue all trip.
Kumho Tyres Australia’s director of sales and marketing, David Basha said Kumho was proud to be a part of both record runs and the company’s confidence in its tyres doing the job was vindicated by their performance on the trips.
“In both instances the tyres were straight out of the rack, just as any member of the public can buy at their local tyre shop, so that gives confidence to our customers that our tyres will stand up to the beating they the Australian environment will throw at them,” said David Basha.
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles director Ryan Davies thanked the partners including Kumho, ARB, Club 4x4 Insurance, Volkswagen Financial Services and MotoKinetic, whose team provided support throughout the planning phase and the journey.
The Amarok consumed 1,199 litres of diesel and only 0.5 litres of oil during the trek and a single puncture.
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will next year release the Amarok 10 Deserts Limited Edition of some 300. This is based on the Amarok Life model grade.