When German globetrotter Gunther Holtorf and his 1988 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen set off on an 18-month tour of Africa in 1989, he didn’t expect to spend the next 26 years (and 900,000 kilometers) road-tripping through 215 countries. His main travel companion was his wife, Christine, who joined the adventure a year later, in 1990. Gunther and Christine enjoyed West and Central Africa for the next five years before shipping “Otto” to South America.
Holtorf removed the 5-cylinder Mercedes-Benz 300 GD rear seats, making room for two custom mattresses and extra storage space for water and cooking gear. As told to BBC News, he carried about 400 spare parts in aluminum boxes on the roof, performed a meticulous preventative maintenance regime, and experienced few breakdowns. After Central and North America, the couple shipped Otto to Australia and New Zealand, continuing through Asia, the Caribbean, and North Korea.
Otto’s odometer passed 500,000 kilometers near the Aral Sea. Because Otto’s odometer topped out at 99,999 kilometers, Gunther took it to Europe, where a specialist pasted a sixth digit in front of the existing five numbers. By the end of the trip, the truck’s engine cylinders and pistons remained in astonishingly good shape. Otto is currently on display at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Untertürkheim, Stuttgart, Germany. Sadly, Christine passed away from cancer in 2010. Her wish was for Gunther to continue the world tour, which he did, with a photo of Christine hanging from Otto’s rear-view mirror.
BBC News put together special coverage of Gunther, Christine, and Otto’s journey across six continents, and it is well worth the read.
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