It was hard, brutally so, but after five days, a group of intrepid motoring enthusiasts had written the Nissan Navara Warrior into the Guinness Book of World Records in a brand new South African bakkie.
The Navara Warrior had only been officially launched to the local market days before.
Built in South Africa by Nissan at its Rosslyn plant, the Pro 4X then undergoes a conversion by Australian engineers, Premcar, in the same plant, to emerge as the Warrior with greater ground clearance, better approach and ramp breakover angles and bigger front and rear tracks.
The best way to prove the new vehicle to the market was to set a world record in it, says Nissan Africa head of communications, Ramy Mohareb.
“We’ve been building the all-new Navara in Rosslyn since just after Covid, starting production in 2021. Last year, we decided to celebrate the fact that this Navara is designed for Africa and made in Africa at our continental LCV manufacturing hub by taking it into Africa.”
Daring Africa
That campaign, an eight-country 8 000km odyssey linking Rosslyn in the south with the Nissan passenger vehicle assembly plant in Cairo at the other end of the continent, was dubbed Daring Africa.
Immediately after, Mohareb started planning for the Warrior, the next evolution beyond the halo Pro4X model.
The quest was simple, the project had to be daring and it had to be in South Africa and it had to showcase the new Navara Warrior – and so the world record attempt came into being.
The Guinness World Records Association set up what the parameters would be for the attempt to set the world’s longest continuous off-road journey.
Parametres
On April 4, Nissan executives, staff and the TopGearSA team who put the project together waited with bated breath to find out if they had done it or not.
According to the Guinness World Records rules, the minimum standards were that not a single kilometre had to be driven on a man-made road, whether tarred or not; it had to be a continuous journey, not laps repeated in a circuit.
The driver(s) could rest at night, but every subsequent stage of the journey had to be on a new route. Tyres that burst could be changed, but the vehicle could not be, for the record to stand, the same vehicle had to start and end the journey.
Finally, the target that was set was 1 000 kilometres.
On Monday, March 31, the convoy of four Navara Warriors arrived at their destination, somewhere in the middle of the Bergvlei region about 180 kilometres from Pofadder.
Not a single tyre had burst; there was not a single mechanical issue with any of the vehicles. They had travelled 1 480 kilometres but they had to wait until Friday to hear that they had officially set a brand-new world record.
Joy and relief
There were shouts of joy and tears of relief when the announcement was made and the framed certificate officially handed over.
“This was not a small thing for us,” said TopGearSA publisher Avon Middleton. “It was hectic. We didn’t just drive, we powered through. The terrain was unlike anything you know.”
Every night was different, setting up camp in the open barren veld next to the vehicles, but the reward was the phenomenal panorama of stars at night, bracketed by unbelievable sunsets and sun rises.
“I encourage everyone to make the trip to Namaqualand and the Richtersveld, but you can’t do it in any vehicle. The Navara Warrior was fantastic; not once did these cars skip a beat. I promise you they were incredible. We were in 4-Low for hundreds of kilometres, which those of you who do off-roading know is no small thing,” Middleton said.
Nissan Africa president Jordi Vila agreed. Setting the world offroad record was very significant for Nissan and in keeping with its 90-year ethos.
“We need to keep daring to do what others don’t, we need to push boundaries because that’s what we have done for our entire history of emblematic, mythical vehicles racing, Formula E, off-road, making records and raising expectations.”