To celebrate the 50th anniversary of some crazy guys crossing Australia’s Simpson desert in a pack of jeeps, a new group of crazy guys are crossing the Simpson desert in a pack of jeeps.
The 2019 BFGoodrich East-West Australian Jeep Expedition will kick off on July 4 2019, near Byron Bay in New South Wales at the most easterly point on the continent. The trip to Steep Point, the furthest point west on the continent, is a 5,000-km journey.
The journey will retrace the original route taken 50 years ago, including through the north Simpson Desert, home to world’s largest collection of north-south facing sand dunes. The team had to be granted special permission to pass through these lands, as they are not open to the public and belong to the aboriginees.
This segment of soft sand stretches for 800 kms alone.
The Wranglers going on this journey span the decades, from TJs, to JKs and the new JL. Each Jeep will wear BFG KM3 mud-terrain tires, a Warn Zeon winch, TeraFlex suspension and Bestop and Factor55 accessories.
The entire journey is planned to last for 20 days and is being planned by Ben Davidson of Seven Slot Expedition and Adventure Architects’ CEO Chris Collard. Two surviving members of the original expedition are also helping with planning.
Fellow automotive journalist Sue Mead will be taking part in the expedition along with Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Rick Pewe.
Come back to TFLOffroad every Sunday for more updates and photos from the journey.
