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 Landcruiser turns
heads
- not quite new but
going strong
Emil and Liliana
Schmid and their recordbreaking Land Cruiser
So why should a 15-year-old
Landcruiser make news in Ireland during the last fortnight? Well,
because it has 468,000 kilometres up, for one.
So? Sure it’s a high mileage, but
there are probably a few more of them around too ...
But it has visited 123 countries
... and just entered the Guinness Book of Records because its owners
have just been granted the ‘world’s longest journey’ title.
Oh ... that’s do it, I suppose.
Emil and Liliana Schmid from
Switzerland gave up their jobs in 1984 at the age of 42 and decided
to see how their new Landcruiser would perform. Seven passports and
over 60 visas later they’re still on the road, about 14 years longer
than they’d planned. They’ve driven through Africa, Australia, South
America and are currently on their way to Iceland - via the Orkney
and Faroe Islands.
“Once we
started out on the road it was difficult to stop,” Emil told Mark
O’Connell, events and promotions manager for Toyota Ireland. “We’ve
not had any major problems.”
Just
normal wear and tear on some components ... they’ve gone through
100,000 litres of fuel, 49 tyres and 84 sparkplugs.
Oh yes ... and they’ve taken
30,000 photographs on their trip. That’ll keep the neighbours happy
when they get home again.
Whenever ...
| © 1998,
Brian Byrne 28/06/98 |
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