Endurance driver Rainer Zietlown visits the Village Volkswagen dealership in Chattanooga on Thursday with the modified 2011 VW Toureg that he used to set a world record for driving the length of the Pan-American Highway.Talk about a road trip.
Rainer Zietlow and two other drivers braved snow, heat and border checkpoints -- not to mention exhaustion -- to set a world record in driving 16,000 miles from the southern tip of South America to the top of Alaska.
Piloting a Volkswagen Touareg TDI clean diesel sport utility vehicle, Zietlow made the trip in 11 days, 17 hours and 22 minutes -- carving three days off the old record, he said in Chattanooga on Thursday.
"We were quite exhausted," he recalled about when the group arrived in Deadhorse, Alaska, driving the length of the Pan-American Highway from their starting point in Ushuaia, Argentina, in July.
Guenther Scherelis, VW's general manager of communication in Chattanooga, said the trip was commissioned to show the reliability of the Touareg.
"The route has all the extreme climate conditions," he said at Village Volkswagen where Zietlow showed off the vehicle.
The 41-year-old, married professional driver who said he holds two other extreme driving records noted the SUV is a stock Touareg modified for long-distances through 14 countries.
He said extra diesel fuel tanks were added along with special tires to handle the often severely potholed roads. The SUV was fitted with satellite phone equipment, Zietlow said.
He said he used no caffeine, but mostly drank Gatorade and ate subs. Stops were made to refuel at designated points where diesel fuel was brought in earlier along the route. In addition, passing through 14 countries, border checks were common, Zietlow said.
He said that in South America, the SUV was loaded onto a ferry to pass over the Strait of Magellan. Also, because the road doesn't connect between Columbia and Panama because of druglords, Zietlow said, the SUV was loaded onto a plane and flown over the border.
Brad Cobb, a manager at Village Volkswagen, said the world record drive shows the value of VW's clean diesel engines.
He said the all-new Passat, under production at VW's Chattanooga assembly plant and to go on sale at dealerships next month, will get 800 miles on a tank of gas using the clean diesel technology.