Rainer Zietlow and his Volkswagen Touareg conquer the Eurasian continent in July 2016
World Record driver Rainer Zietlow (45) from Mannheim, Germany is on the road again. With his long-term team mate, photographer and cameraman Marius Biela, and the Russian journalist from Auto Mail.Ru, Petr Bakarov, he tries to achieve his fourth long distance world record.
Zietlow chooses the Volkswagen Touareg V6 TDI once again for this great transcontinental trip. This time, he and his team intend to drive on the longest road through the Eurasian continent the “Transkontinentale”, from Magadan, the most Eastern city in Russia, that can be reached by car, to Lisbon, the most Western city in continental Europe. They try to drive the 15.200 km long stretch through eleven time zones in around 8 days in the beginning of July 2016.
The most difficult part will be the first 3000 km, also known as the Road of Bones which is a bumpy gravel road, challenging for man and machine - and only passable in the right weather situation, as its loosening up after only some days of rain. Moscow is another bottleneck, famous for its heavy traffic jam which only clears up the very early morning hours. From Russia, the team will be passing through Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, Spain and finally Portugal, hoping to reach the finish line in Lisbon.
Since 2005 Rainer Zietlow supports SOS Children’s Villages with each of his projects. Also this time he will visit an SOS Children’s Village close to Minsk, Belarus to hand over a donation of 10 Euro cent per each kilometer driven.
Zietlow and team will again be posting about their world record drive on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram. The team can be followed live on www.touareg-eurasia.com. This will we accompanied by hundreds of photos, daily videos and live blog posts from inside the Touareg.
The Volkswagen Touareg has only been slightly modified for the endurance challenge, fitted with a roll-cage and two extra fuel tanks. For Zietlow and his Touareg it will be the fifth long distance challenge - a record also for the Volkswagen Touareg which he drives since 2011.
The Touareg Eurasia world record run is supported by automotive and logistic companies and by the main partner Lukoil lubricants from Russia.