Sahara West-East with VW Kombi vans (1983-4)
 

Click this for the start of a series of the now completed 8 reports and maps by Austrian Peter R about his 'OSEWO' group's largely off-piste crossing of the Sahara from Atlantic to Red Sea in a couple of heavily laden VW Kombis.
They had to dodge Libya but it's amazing what these RWD vans managed.

A few images.

Incredible story and photos, I've been thoroughly enjoying the read:thumbup1:

Just got sent a pic of another cool desert VW.
Seen in Tam, 2003 by a bloke who also just missed getting abducted on the Graveyard Piste after meeting the bikers who were grabbed at KM330.

We met the same car just after the dunes on the Graveyard Piste, back in 1990.
Batty Bavarian father and son.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3dYWXUXEAck-v7?format=jpg

Very nice read, especially the first few sections through Mauritania, Mali and Algeria. Thanks for sharing. Is the author on this forum?

Quite amazing how those T2s held up, 1000 litres of petrol between two cars, plus all the water and gear inside. Two spare engines, one complete axle...

'Normally we can change and engine in about 1 hour'. Not sure I could do that with an engine crane in my Landcruiser... 36 litres for 100 km from a 1.7? litre engine... they must have really been working them.

A shame they could not head through Libya. I wonder why they didn't pick to cross northern Niger and then into Chad? He mentions that the southern route would be too far out of the desert to count as a real west-east crossing, but surely it would have been better than Italy and Greece. Or was Chad a total no-go in those days?

I hope one day we can do things like this again...

EO

Peter R is not on this forum afaik, but put in a whole lot of work to prepare the pdfs for my website so many could enjoy the read.
As I understand it, the reason their hitherto agreed entry into Libya via Ghat was denied was that Gaddafi escalated the war in Chad and may have been on a roll at that time following hurried French intervention (rather like in Mali a few years ago).
Northern Chad was certainly no go right through the 80s (as a former Hilux man you must know of the 'Toyota War', the endgame of the Libya-Chad conflict).
I presume visas for foreign tourists to drive across Chad to Sudan would not have been possible at that time, plus as said, not a true desert crossing.