The wild balloon-tyred Toyota pickups built by Arctic Trucks International in Iceland are famous for their off-road prowess in freezing snow and ice, but as you’ll see here they’re equally unstoppable on soft sand.
Truck Jungle had its first look at Arctic Trucks late last year here and we promised you’d be seeing more of them. We really like these trucks because they are designed and hand-built to meet extreme off-road requirements and they always perform brilliantly in those roles.
These are the same guys that built the bright red Toyota Hilux that starred in BBC Television’s Top Gear Polar Challenge in 2007, when show hosts Jeremy Clarkson and James May in the Hilux prevailed over Richard Hammond (on a dog-drawn sled!) in a race to the Magnetic North Pole.
Arctic Trucks was founded in 1990 when Toyota Iceland started modifying 4×4 pickups for very specialised off-road applications.
The company now operates independently from Toyota Iceland and has expanded its operation into Norway in recent years. It also now assists other truck brands requiring such special modifications to suit a variety of off-road needs.
And despite their aggressive appearance, these AT44 models running the biggest 44-inch tall rubber are actually designed to minimise damage to the environment because their huge, low pressure, high flotation tyres roll right over the top of the terrain instead of through it.
This video clip shot in 2010 shows the effortless dune-driving ability of a Toyota Hilux, modified by Arctic Trucks to run the huge 44-inch tall balloon tyres at extremely low pressures.
This pickup truck’s combined footprint is so wide and the tyre pressures so low (look for ripples in the tyre sidewalls under power) that it just rolls right across the top of these hot, drifting sands in South Africa. And this was just before it headed off to tackle the snow and ice of Antarctica!