A trip across the sahara in the 80's with 70's beaters.
Now, I know Australia has some of the toughest tracks and you guys have been doing crossings since forever, but I found this just yesterday and although I was aware of the stories of people doing these trips I never saw a video of one.
Roughly translating the opening sequence:
"Between 1982 and 1986 we drove cars overland to West Africa. The cars were Peugeot 504's which are used as taxi's in those regions. Because there is an import ban on used cars in those countries it is lucrative to drive the cars in over land. Since the risk involved is very great the price is high. A car bought from the wreckers for 500,- can be sold there for around 10.000,- (Dutch Guilders back then) The travel costs, the return ticket and the purchase of new cars needs to be financed from that. To make some extra money in order to reduce costs we sold jeans and tax-free whisky in Algeria. Money was also smuggled and the cheap Dinars that we got for that in return we bought car parts, parts that were sold again in Niger. No luxury was brought, no camping gear so no unnecessary weight, only what was needed for the trip. To bring more than one car on a trip and reduce costs even further 3 paying and working passengers were sought beforehand. This journey was filmed in 1986 with the then newly introduced JVC VHS camera (we can see that in the footage -g-). Every journey starts with a ad in the newspaper."
Basically a bunch of Dutchies buying cars that were ready for scrapping, made sure they at least ran well enough and had proper brakes and tyres, and overloaded them to the brim to literally race them across the Sahara. At one point they need to cross 1375KM of desert without fuel or water so they load up 450L of fuel and 150L of water in the cars. Airing down those types of tyres is only done when you are stuck so during all other times it's just keeping up speed to power through the soft bull-dust sand. Also, no satellite phone, no GPS, no car to car communication, nothing.
The guy has said someplace that he would not do it again these days (not that that is possible anymore) but they were young and foolish
I guess I was born just a tad bit too late. Sounds like an awesome adventure to me!
Also, they come across a bunch of other overlanders preparing to make the crossing at some point. I believe I counted some 10 different vehicles at least so this kind of thing has been "popular" for quite some time I guess
We drove across the Sahara in 1988 (LWB S3 ex RAF Landrover and a Suzuki) and met lots of people doing this. There was a big market in Agadez in Niger for selling such vehicles. Sold the Suzuki there.
We actually bailed a chap out driving a Mercedes sedan across the desert - halfway between Tamanrasset in Algeria and Arlit in Niger (ie a long long way from anywhere) - he had a radiator leak, which we helped patch and tehn supplied some of our precious water. So it was quite the thing.
I hope I've succesfully added three photos. The first is a grainy photo of the two vehicles at a campsite (we travelled very light to avoid overloading the vehciles) - this was close to the Algeria/Niger border. The second is in Niger and shows a masively overloaded Toyota being push started and the third is a photo of my wife washing her hair with limited water and shows the amount of metalwork we hung off the front of the LR for the trip (2 springs, a vice, fuel cans (!) and I think a petrol stove (!!). Oh and some peirced steel plank strapped to the spare wheel on the bonnet I see. Note the UK military bumperbar.
That SIII was a brilliant car. As was the Suzuki in the desert, although its load carrying capacity was limited.
110 300tdi (1999)
110 V8 County (1984)
SIII 'Game' (1977)
Nice pics I love seeing that stuff. You drove my dreams It is stories like these when I was a young bloke that fuelled the travel spark in me. I haven't checked the situation on the ground in those areas recently but I kinda doubt the trip is possible these days
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