We drive Top Gear's Toyota Hilux

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04 October 2007

The new series of Top Gear kicks off this weekend, but it's hard to imagine how it could top their last challenge – driving to the North Pole.

It had never been done before, but one car jumped out as the only machine tough enough for the world's last great wilderness still to be conquered by the internal combustion engine – the Toyota Hilux.

And last week Stuart Milne visited Toyota's HQ to drive it.

Click here to see more pictures of the Arctic Toyota Hilux

"Don't imagine that we were nice and warm in the car," James May told Top Gear magazine.

"We weren't allowed to have the heating on because it would interfere with our special misery-spec Arctic on-board cameras."

But that didn't stop them cramming a PlayStation 2 into the glovebox – presumably making May and TG cohort Jeremy Clarkson the two most northern computer game players on the planet.

The mystery console was just one of the things I found, spending a morning nosing around and driving the world record-breaking pickup truck at Toyota's base in Surrey.

"A broken shock absorber and hole in the fuel tank were the only damage" Alun Parry told us. And that was only as a result of Clarkson's frustration of inching forward through solid 300-year-old ice boulders.

The show saw Jezza flooring the Hilux and bouncing through the air before landing heavily on a solid block of ice.

Alun was the mastermind behind the challenge, and spent a year planning and organising the journey.

And he was the one to drive the truck back to base camp in Resolute, Quebec while Top Gear flew back in relative luxury.

But if you thought the show was a staged pantomime at 25-below, think again.

"We couldn’t have the heater on because it would steam up the cameras, and the fluctuations in temperature when getting in and out was bitter" said Alun.

"We worn Resolute parkers which are good for -60 degrees, but its all about keeping layers of clothes on and making sure you've got clothes with vents.

"It's so cold your sweat can freeze and burn your skin."

So what about the truck – it'd have to be something special to survive when humans wouldn't have a prayer.

It looks like a massive Tonka truck. A brand new 3-litre diesel Hilux was shipped to Iceland to be kitted out by a team of cold weather specialists, Arctic Trucks.

In a conversion which would cost upwards of £75,000 including the car, Emil Grimsson and his team moved the front axle and suspension forward 40mm to allow the front doors to open.

Those wheels measure a puny 15 inches in diameter – smaller than the rims on a standard Hilux Invincible – but are wrapped in a set of balloon-like tyres with metal studs for better traction on the cold stuff.

Amazingly the engine remains standard, as does the automatic gearbox, but the intake and exhaust have been replaced for more Arctic-friendly versions to allow deeper wading through water and a huge 90-litre auxiliary fuel tank was bolted on.

And when I drove the car, the extra fuel tank was still attached by some heavy duty strapping – a hangover from Clarkson's Dukes of Hazzard-style driving.

The butch bodywork includes massive extended wheelarches and huge side steps, which are now bent after TG's arctic antics.

Replacing the rear seats with a massive winch would seem like good idea, and the car has a bundle of recovery gear including shovels, towing straps, chainsaw, axes – and a rifle holder bolted to the side.

It was sad to see the famous 'Bumper Dumper' toilet seat had been removed though.

Amazingly the Hilux – despite its added kit – proved pretty much as the standard car to drive. The only real difference was some extra wallow from the massive tyres, and a strange bubble wrap-popping sound as the studs scuffed along the tarmac.

In fact, if it wasn't for the extra ride height and massive holes chopped in the dashboard which once housed the BBC's camera gear, it could have been driven straight out of a showroom.

Shockingly, it's almost road legal. With numberplates and a tax disc, all which would be required to get it through its MOT would be tyres free from studs and the dark tints removed from the front side windows – important to avoid snow glare, less so in leafy Epsom.

But what an occasion it is to drive the very first car to reach the North Pole – the first time I've been behind the wheel of a record-breaker, and hopefully not the last.

Vijay Pattni speaks to the team behind Arctic Trucks

Click here to see more pictures of the Arctic Toyota Hilux

L.A.T.W.O.T. Video of the Week

Clarkson, May and the Hilux enter the hardest part of their journey – the arctic ice boulder fields