Autonomy

This is incredible...

Back in 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, Gunther Holtorf and his wife Christine set out on what was meant to be an 18-month tour of Africa in their Mercedes Benz G Wagon. Now, with more than 800,000km (500,000 miles) on the clock, Gunther is still going.

The German former airline executive has travelled the equivalent of 20 times around the planet in the vehicle - which he calls Otto. He says he has never had a serious breakdown. Recently in Vietnam, Canadian-born photographer David Lemke joined Gunther on one section of his epic journey.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18910560

Paracletus

Wow! That's unimaginably epic.

Karlos The Jackal

Thats amazing! I notice there were no pictures of the SZR or Emirates Road! T

Jim Smith

Another one who has been at it for years!!

http://www.weltrekordreise.ch/a_starte.html

Millhouse

I really liked this story. How it was suppose to only be a few months, then they just kept at it.

Cool car too.

EDIT> What I liked was where he's been. Most would just expect the typical crawling all over Africa, but there are loads of Western places and some tin pot regimes. I would love to know how he imported the car into some of those places.

LaLaLayla

Not that impressed, to be honest. My old E Class had 600,000 km on the clock when I sold it.

kittycat1

What an absolutely incredible trip- amazing- what is the betting that as soon as he said the car has never broken down he's soooo gonna break down! Great photography- you really can't beat film!

Oyibopeppeh

It made my day watching that....

Autonomy

Totally agree re: locations.... from Brazil to Hollywood, Kuwait, Iraq, all over Africa and everywhere in between...

Leica's are rather good cameras.... but it's the person not the camera that makes the image - agree - some not just good snaps, but great photographs there. Also love the way they did it, local foods, no hotels, keep going... why? Because it's there....

Did anyone else tear up when it became clear his wife had passed away and with her picture hanging from the rear view mirror he said that she wanted him to keep going... awesome....

Karlos The Jackal

The blonde didnt look bad..................wonder who she was!

Boomhauer

That is the best advert for the g-wagen.

Before I got my nas D110, I was thinking about getting a G. I gave up on it partly thinking that spares would be hard to come by in MesoAmerica and South America. I'd always thought that the utilitarian LandCruiser would be the best 4x4 to travel in 3rd world nations owing to its availabilty around the world and reliability.

weasel decentral

To be fair, a thousand school runs might not make for an interesting a read

weasel decentral

If I have learned anything in my travels to various shitholes around the world, the easiest parts to find and most common old high mileage vehicles you usually find are mercedes.

Millhouse

at 600km, that is quite a school run.

LaLaLayla

Yeah, I was quite proud of the mileage . It was in good shape, too. Absolutely nothing mechanically wrong with it. They don't make them like they used to (this was a 1984 model).