The project “Around the world in a Zhiguli” has finished after ten months of adventure

At the end of January, Filip Vogel and Peter Javůrek returned from their trip. The two adventurers had gone on a journey around the world in 1975 blue VAZ 2013, a legendary car also known as Zhiguli. Satelon’s Czech distributor GPS Dozor tracked their whole journey so that everyone could see the Zhiguli’s position on an online map in real time. Read on about their adventure!

In the first days, we were surprised by snow and cold.

"After nearly ten months on the road, we arrived again at the start of our expedition in Čestlice. We had been traveling over 4 continents: Europe, Asia, North and South America. Our maximum cruising speed was 80 kilometers per hour and we tracked 56,500 kilometers with an average consumption of 9 liters per 100 kilometers.

The once feared death tunnel in Tajikistan. Today, riding through is boring since the tunnel had been repaired and is relatively safe.

• It was spring, the snow melted and the streams were discharged. But that couldn’t stop us.

• We have visited 30 countries and experienced the hospitality of many people around the world. In Kyrgyzstan, the locals killed a cock and prepared a gala dinner for us. In Chile, for example, we were invited to a cheese factory.

• But Russia was the biggest surprise. We became quite popular there because we traveled in a 42-year-old Russian car. To the Russians, such a feat was impossible and they all warned us that the car will break up soon and we would die somewhere. Fortunately, they were wrong.

Service pause by a typical Russian birch grove.

Loading the Zhiguli into a container in the port of Vladivostok.

We also passed some extreme altitudes with our Zhiguli. In Pamir and the Andes, we climbed to about 4500 meters above sea level. High temperature combined with less oxygen in the air were almost deadly for the car. Sometimes, it just stopped and we had to wait until it had rested enough. Then we could continue. On various occasions, this had happened at a busy intersection in the middle of the city.

What caused the most technical problems was the fuel pump in combination with warm gasoline and engine overheating. We also broke both rear springs on rugged paths, the chassis geometry gave way a little and many more lesser issues appeared.

We had two accidents. The first one was in Mexico and the other in Ecuador. In Mexico, we damaged the left fender. The accident in Ecuador was fatal for the right fender, so at least the crash served to make the car look somehow symmetrical.

The coolest and also the warmest place we encountered on our journey was the Death Valley.

We have failed to move at the minimum speed on the New Mexico motorway.

The whole journey was a great adventure to both of us. We met so many people and experienced some good and bad moments along the way. Before setting off, we were afraid of cabin fever, but it didn’t come at all. Today, when we are safe and sound at our homes, we can’t stop thinking about our next adventures.”

Tulum - a historic city on the shores of the Caribbean Sea.

The Dakar Memorial. The race takes place here, but we arrived late.