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Old 11-02-2008, 04:14 AM
BlueGerbil BlueGerbil is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Germany
Posts: 89
October 17-18, 2008: Italy

Unfortunately our journey to Vidigulfo did not go as smoothly as the last 6,500 kilometers. In a narrow highway construction site our third Wrangler (F3) grazed a water-filled barrier, started lurching, reached an extremely inclined position, tore down about 40 meters of the barrier with thousands of liters of water and could only be prevented from toppling over by a very lucky pull on the steering-wheel. Slithering, the vehicle came to a stop diagonally to the driving direction. Nobody and no further vehicles have been involved in this accident. We notified the highway police immediately and they secured the scene of the accident. After a first ascertainment the police escorted our convoy to the next exit.

The contact with the police was very obliging and correct to an extremely high degree. Still at the highway service area we started with the necessary emergency repairs (which had to be continued later on in Milano) because F3 had quite some damages. After carrying out the emergency repairs we were able to continue on our way and arrived in Vidigulfo in the evening and after 33 hours. For the next day we had plans for driving tests at one of the biggest vehicle testing grounds of Italy. The operating company ? Quattroruote ? will open its off-road testing ground soon and we were ? arranged by Chrysler Italy ? invited as the guests of honour to pre-test the area.

In addition to four TV-teams and three photographer-teams, the highest-ranking representatives of Goodyear Italy ? including the CEO ? were also present. It was fun and it was a nice event. The supervision by Quattroruote was exemplary. It was also very nice to see the gradeability of our vehicles. 80% grade uphill forwards, 100% grade downhill forwards and 100% grade uphill backwards (including equipment) are amazing results for every off-roader. Now we continue towards Slovenia and Croatia.







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