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November 22, 2006 This Week:
© 1998 - 2006
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Together with the 24 escort vehicles, which ranged from the G-Classes of the Mercedes-Benz crew and technical trucks to the mobile diesel service station, the marathon entourage covered a total road distance of about 840,000 kilometers. This corresponds to the 21-fold circumference of the earth at the equator.
Five legs from Europe to Asia After the start in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on 21 October, the route of the ”E-Class Experience” initially led through France, Germany, Poland and the Baltics to St. Petersburg, where the first change of drivers took place after seven days. In this case, the route followed the path of the legendary first transcontinental automobile race held 99 years ago, which ran in the opposite direction from Beijing to Paris and wrote automotive history. The second group steered the E-Classes through Russia and over the snow-covered Urals to Yekaterinburg, while the third group drove through the hot, late-summer weather in the steppes of Kazakhstan to Almaty. The high-point of this leg of about 2500 kilometres was the overnight stay with Kazakh guest families in the small town of Balchasch - organized by the local mayor.
In many places the convoy was spontaneously surrounded and joyfully greeted by local people who appreciated their striking and unusual design. All participating E-Class cars are decorated with the flags of the participating nations, in order to underline the internationality of the long distance drive. Through the Taklamakan Desert onto the Silk Road Last Wednesday the diesel marathon crossed the barrier between Kazakhstan and our destination country, China, as the last of eight border crossings along the route. The final change of groups took place in Lanzhou on the Yellow River after crossing the Taklamakan Desert and driving about 1000 kilometres on the legendary Silk Road. From there, the last 1700 kilometres led to the south of the Gobi desert and through the grass steppes of Inner Mongolia. Yesterday evening the teams of the "E-Class Experience" spent their last night in Badaling at the Chinese Wall. Record breaking consumption figures: 5.5 litres/100 km and 5,300 bananas The Ebay” team in car number 3 won the fuel economy contest over the entire distance with a consumption of only 7,19 l/100 km. Thanks to their economical driving style, the ”German Taxi" team only needed 5.5 liters of diesel for every 100 kilometers on the 616 kilometer-long drive from Lanzhou to Wuhai. The figures are especially remarkable because all participating cars are standard production E-Classes with 165 kW/224 HP. And: The luxury sedans didn’t have it easy. They where fully loaded with up to three passengers and numerous pieces of luggage. Because of the anticipated bad road conditions and cold weather all cars were equipped with winter tires and a suspension that was raised by five centimeters. With a low total average consumption of 8.32 l/100 km diesel fuel for all 36 Vehicles the goal of demonstrating the diesel engines’ superior fuel efficiency was clearly met on the individual legs as well as over the entire distance. In total the fleet of 36 vehicles consumed about 40,530 liters of low sulfur diesel fuel. That is about 20 percent or 10,000 liters less than originally estimated. The participating 18 rear-wheel drive vehicles consumed only 8.01 l/100 km diesel, while the 18 4MATIC models with four-wheel drive ended up with a slightly higher average of 8.53 l/100 km. The 360 participants and 40-person support team had relatively higher consumption: In addition to breakfast and dinners, between Paris and Beijing they consumed about 8,200 lunch sandwiches, 5,300 bananas, 4,000 chocolate bars and 9,600 bottles of mineral water. All participants endured the strains of the marathon - apart from occasional upset stomachs - in good health, which luckily left the two-person physician team accompanying the entire tour with hardly anything to do. A taxi trip for 40,000 Euros The most unusual vehicles in the fleet were the two E-Class taxi cabs which accompanied the convoy over the total distance. In this case, the competitive comparison showed clear cost differences. The fare in the German taxi came to 16,050 Euros at the end of the fourth leg after just 12,000 kilometres. The trip in the Parisian taxi would have been clearly more expensive: At that point, the meter already displayed the proud amount of 34,090 Euros. Until the arrival in Beijing, the total will have come to nearly 40,000 Euros. (November 17, 2006)
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