He plans to cover the route from the earth's southernmost city of over a million inhabitants to its northernmost counterpart in less than three weeks.
The all-terrain Volkswagen Touareg is armed with some additional equipment, such as a roll-cage and an extra fuel tank. During the journey, the team will cross many climatic and vegetation zones and have to withstand extreme heat, torrential rain, sandstorms and differences in altitude, so the Touareg is set to prove its qualities and durability in all the challenging conditions along the way.
This is a 3.0 V6 TDI Clean Diesel engine with 225PS in the US version. A GPS system will record the team's position very 30 minutes along the way. Anyone interested in following the record journey can do so in real time at www.touareg-russtralia.com
Melbourne has been twinned with St Petersburg since 1989.
Our picture shows Vadim Gagarin, Rainer Zietlow and Marius Biela just prior to setting off yesterday with the Touareg.
