Two Germans have travelled over 33,000km in Australia in a Volkswagen ID.4 GTX, setting a world record in the process – and now one of them is embarking on another record attempt in an Amarok.
“We’ll also prove once again [the Amarok is Australian]… We gave the task to the team to go, in an Australian way, to 10 deserts – to all key deserts in Australia – in one shot,” Karsten Seifert, Volkswagen Group Australia’s managing director, told CarExpert.
While that will be within an as-yet unspecified timeframe, Mr Seifert stressed road rules would be followed – this won’t be some Australian Cannonball Run.
Rainer Zietlow will use an Amarok Style V6 with accessories fitted by Volkswagen and sponsor ARB, riding on chunky Kumho Road Venture MT71 tyres.
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Mr Zietlow has just spent 43 days driving around the country with co-driver and photographer Marius Biela in an “epic torture test” that saw the duo spell out ’70 Years of VeeDub’ in his own personal, left-hand drive vehicle.
This part of their journey accounted for 23,901km of the total 33,548km journey, with the electric SUV circumnavigating the country to “frame” the message.
This earned them the Guinness World Record for the largest GPS drawing made by an electric car.
The adventure was sponsored by Volkswagen Financial Services, the Sydney Swans AFL team and Kumho Tyres.
The duo suffered just one puncture, with Volkswagen praising the Kumho tyres – and the ID.4 itself – for being able to tackle rutted outback roads, beaches, snow and water crossings.
The record attempt was also sponsored by Ampol, which is responsible for the AmpCharge network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers.
The duo says the journey involved 132 charging points.
“The [charging] network is better as you could say for this size of country,” said Mr Zietlow.
“You have less destroyed or less out of order chargers than we have in Europe.
“I’m surprised how good that infrastructure is set up already.”
He did note that in parts of Queensland the duo had to look to farmers and roadhouses for sufficient charging capability.
Mr Zietlow is a self-professed lover of the Volkswagen brand, and is no stranger to setting records – and that includes in ID.4s.
With Derek Collins, he set a Guinness World Record for the longest distance driven in an EV in a single country back in 2021, travelling 58,000km in the US.
He and a team also set a record in 2022 for reaching the greatest height above sea level in an EV at the Uturuncu volcano in Bolivia.
Other records include a 2005 trip in a Touareg where he reached a height of 6081m at Ojos del Salado in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
Click an image to view the full gallery, and head to the Volkswagen Australia website for a breakdown of the trip.
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