The AT44 and modified Ford F-150 drive through Times Square in New York City. The Transglobal Car Expedition set off from New York on Jan. 10 on a journey that will take about 18 months to circumnavigate the globe from pole-to-pole using an amphibious vehicle designed to traverse sea ice and taking boats between continents where necessary.Chris Collard/Supplied
A group of adventurers has set themselves the challenge of being the first to circumnavigate the globe – reaching both poles – in wheeled vehicles. The Transglobal Car Expedition set off from New York on Jan. 10 on a journey that will take them about 18 months with plans to open new frontiers for science and mobility.
Along the way, they will drive four kinds of vehicles – including an amphibious model designed to traverse sea ice – approximately 50,000 kilometres through 30 countries, taking boats between continents where necessary. The route will take them through the United States to Saskatchewan, then up to the geographic north pole, passing the magnetic pole on the way. From there, they’ll make their way south across to Greenland, sail to Iceland and then to Denmark. Once in Europe, they’ll drive south to Africa, and then sail across to Antarctica.
Once they reach the South Pole, they’ll return to New York by sailing first to Argentina and then driving north through the Americas. They’ll rely on a fleet of modified Ford trucks and SUVs for most of the trip, while specialized amphibious vehicles will be brought into play on the Arctic sea ice.
“Ten or 12 years ago, I started pitching ‘what’s the hardest thing you can do with a vehicle in the world?’ Nobody’s ever driven pole to pole,” Andrew Comrie-Picard said in an interview. He is the sole Canadian member of the expedition and an automotive and driving specialist, as well as chief commercial officer for Arctic Trucks North America, which modifies vehicles for harsh environments and is providing support for this trip. “There’s very little that is not yet being done. And this is one of those few precious things.”
The rest of the core team of eight includes several Russian mountaineers, two polar vehicle specialists and other polar exploration experts. While the expected cost of the expedition has not been made public, it’s primarily backed by Swiss non-profit GoodGear, which was formed to support the expedition, along with National Geographic and Climate Positive, which helps organizations and individuals to offset their carbon footprint.
While Comrie-Picard acknowledged undertaking this challenge is driven mainly by the thrill and romance of adventure, he also pointed out what they aim to accomplish: vehicle sales and scientific data collection.
“We brought the scientific projects on board because we are collecting data that has not been collected and cannot be collected really any other way,” he said. By using powered wheeled vehicles to venture to both poles, he says the expedition will allow for more sophisticated cosmic particle and sea ice thickness studies than was possible with previous human-powered trekking and skiing expeditions.
Members of the team from the 2022 Canadian Arctic reconnaissance mission sit beside two trucks used in the expedition. A modified Ford F-150 was put to an extra test when it crashed through the Arctic ice on a reconnaissance mission in 2022. Nobody was hurt in the incident, and the team mounted a special rescue mission to retrieve the truck from the sea floor.Supplied
And then there are the sales: “The mobility solutions that Arctic Trucks has come up with, which have mostly been applied to the Antarctic, we’re now starting to apply in the Arctic,” Comrie-Picard added. “We were the first ones to do it last year by pioneering a course from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay [in Nunavut]. But now the upshot is that Arctic Trucks has received orders from Indigenous road-building crews and from mineral exploration crews.”
The fleet of Ford vehicles making all but the sea ice crossings possible has been modified by Iceland-based Arctic Trucks. Three F-350 AT44 six-by-sixes will be the main polar workhorses. While still street legal, the vehicles are specially designed to traverse tough polar landscapes and are lighter and more agile on snow and ice than regular off-road trucks.
The AT44 is named for its giant 44-inch tires mounted on 17-inch rims. They were specially developed in co-operation with Nokian in Finland. The tires are connected to an on-board compressor system that allows the team members to modify pressures without having to exit the vehicle. In the polar regions, tires will be inflated to between two and three pounds per square inch (most cars use tire pressures of about 35) to improve grip on deep snow and ice.
Powered by a 6.7-litre diesel engine, the AT44 can carry up to three tons of gear while also towing a sled loaded with 5,000 litres of fuel. It has a self-sufficient range in this configuration of 6,500 kilometres.
The team will drive these trucks from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay in Nunavut. After that, they’ll be sent back to the Arctic Trucks workshop in Wyoming to be remodified for the Antarctic leg. To meet expedition permit requirements in Antarctica, they will be converted to run on jet fuel. The rear brakes and lights will be removed and a bumper with ground penetrating radar will be fitted. Once they’ve made the Antarctic crossing, the trucks will remain at the Union Glacier Camp to be used for future projects.
Arctic Trucks founder Emil Grimsson said he sees good potential in the Canadian North, and hopes the expedition will lead to more sales with mining exploration firms and Indigenous communities.
They are a sizable investment, however, with an AT44 starting at just under US$300,000. One of them is making the drive from New York to Yellowknife with the other vehicles.
A Ford F-150 hybrid and four Ford Expeditions round out the road-going fleet. Although modified by Arctic Trucks, with bigger tires and improved protection from hazards like rocks and rough roads, these will provide mostly non-polar transport. Once the team reaches Yellowknife from New York, all five vehicles will be shipped to Iceland, leaving just the amphibious vehicles to tackle the sea ice and reach the magnetic north pole.
Once they’ve crossed the sea to the mainland of Europe, the team will then drive the F-150 and Expeditions to South Africa.
The F-150 is being used to test hybrid technology in polar conditions. A diesel version of the modified truck was put to an extra test when it crashed through the Arctic ice on a reconnaissance mission in 2022. Nobody was hurt in the incident, and the team mounted a special rescue mission to retrieve the truck from the sea floor.
The Russian-made Yemelya, an amphibious vehicle built by expedition member Vasily Elagin, will make the connection between land and sea ice. These extremely lightweight vehicles – less than 3,600 pounds – can run on air pressures so low they exert less force per wheel than a human walking. Their spacious interior can accommodate three people for weeks at a time, and still fit inside a standard shipping container. Four of them will be used to traverse the sea ice from Cambridge Bay to the North Pole and on to Greenland. It’s a 7,500-kilometre journey that will take about four months.
The expedition has partnered with several research scientists to collect data about sea ice thickness, measure cosmic rays throughout the journey and conduct experiments on themselves to learn more about the effects of extreme environments on the human body. The crew will also be assisting in two citizen science projects to collect data about light pollution and dark matter.
“The very first experiment on board – an unprecedented measurement – has to do with cosmic radiation. The sources of this radiation are very distant in deep space, and we still don’t know where they come from. So, it’s extremely important to study them because they carry information about deep space, about the unknowns, about the universe,” Paola Cataplano, head of content production for research laboratory CERN in Geneva, an expedition research partner, said at a launch event held for the expedition.
The expedition is carrying four cosmic ray particle detectors, each the size of a large laptop. They will be the first to collect data about the intensity of cosmic rays at the North Pole. In a nod to the polar explorers before them, the instruments have been named after Sir Ernest Shackleton, and three of the vessels that took him and his contemporaries into the unknown, Erebus, Nobile and Vera.
Editor’s note: In an earlier version of this story it was stated that the expedition will travel to the magnetic north pole. In fact they will pass through the magnetic north pole on their way to the geographic north pole. In an earlier version it was stated that in polar regions, tires would be inflated to between seven and nine pounds per square inch. In fact, they will be inflated to between two and three pounds per square inch. This version has been updated.