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An Introduction to the 'Camel Trophy'"From the jungles of Borneo to the Amazon River, the Camel Trophy was the ultimate test of skill and stamina. Not only for the crews taking part from all over the world, but also for a selection of world-beating machines from Solihull. Born in 1980, the Camel Trophy was designed to test the fitness of both man and machine, as teams competed in a 1000-plus mile endurance event through some of the world's least hospitable terrain. Indeed, the spirit of the Camel Trophy is often misunderstood. It never was an all-out race to the finish, but a celebration of teamwork, an event where competitors scored extra points for stopping to help each other out and where the team spirit award was, in later years, more coverted than the Camel Trophy itself. The Trophy wasn't awarded to the fastest team to finish, but to the ones who completed the most tasks and visited the most navigational points. The first Trophy was a low-key affair. Three German teams took to the Transamazonica highway in South America in a fleet of Jeep CJ6's, taking in tricky jungle terrain and swampy river crossings. Their quest captured the imagination of adventurers all over the world and the foundations for the Camel Trophy were well and truly laid out. The following year, Land Rover supplied the vehicles in a move that would set precedent for the next 18 years of the camel Trophy. The first Solihull vehicles were V8 Range Rovers, the venue: the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The stage was set for Land Rover to prove unequivocally that its vehicles were tougher than the rest....." Reproduced from an article carried in January 2001's Land Rover Owner International.
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