Unusual Overland Vehicles - From a Tractor to a Sidecar

Seen any unusual Overland Vehicles lately?  In this blog I list the most unusual types of vehicles which have been use for an overland trip. The vehicles range from an old French van, a tractor and even a Tuk Tuk.  Missing from the vehicle list is a quad bike!

Here are a few examples:

Citroën Hy
What an interesting vehicle... “Sur les chemins du monde” (The world is your oyster) opted for this 1969, 3 gears, 70 horses power, original 1.9l fuel engine to complete a world trip.

Quoted from the website:

Hachille, a real 1968 Citroyen type HY72, is going to be Géraldine’s travelling mate during this world tour! It used to be France’s most used utility vehicle. Used as national police vehicle, on the one hand, or transport van for small businesses, on the other hand, the famous Type H, which is often called Tub, experienced its hours of glory between 1948 and 1981.

Tractor
If you have time, then crossing Africa in a Tractor is the way to go. Manon drove her tractor from NL to ZA and wrote a book and a website about it. Her aim was the South Pole.  Very impressive.

TukTuk

This is another unique vehicle choice for an overland trip.  Tuk to the Road, was the name of the website about the trip from Bangkok to Brighton driven by Jo & Ants.

We stopped for lunch at a roadside café and pulled up next to a wedding party. They spotted TT and came over to have a photo shoot with her. The bride was wearing a flowing white gown and TT made her look even more stunning. We went inside the café and ordered a pretty basic lunch...

Ural Sidecar

Dating back to 2000, a couple departed South Africa with a Sidecar - an Ural Sidecar to be precise. Mullie & Nobile created a website to record their trip via East Africa.  A quote from the Zambian diary:

The bike is still running flawlessly, despite the off road adventures we had in Zambia. On our way from Livingstone to Lake Kariba, we had our first flat. Luckily, it happened right when we entered a small village called Choma. Luckily because my jack died when I tried to use it (stripped threads). I was able to lend one from a local garage, but immediately one of the locals who happened to be passing by in a car brought his own jack and helped us through the entire tire fixing process. In addition, it looked like it was not only the first flat for us, but also for the entire village considering the amount of people (esp. children) surrounding us when we tried to fix the flat. BTW, the Russian glue and patches didn't work that well, so I simply replaced the tube with a spare one.

Beach Buggy
Tom & his Red Buggy - a unique combination as pushed the Red Buggy South from EU to ZA.

Penny-Farthing
Bicycles are often used for adventure cycling and overland trips.  Tandem bikes included.  However, a Penny-Farthing is unique.  Joff headed around the world on his!

Mercedes 300TD
This unique overland prepared Mercedes W123 300TD popped up on the Africa Overland Network website.  I liked the way Jurgen had prepped the vehicle with a rooftop tent and all the additional expedition accessories. For more information see Jurgen's weblog.

Quad Bikes

Thanks to a comment posted by Alex, I can now add an overland trip by Quad bike.
Josh and Anna completed their trip in 2008 and set a Guinness Record for the trip.

Even as I type this, I am amazed how many different vehicles people have opted for. All of them have a story to tell along with plenty of adventures.  Enjoy your reading!

Feb 2010 update:
Updated the Quad trip after a comment from Alex

If you enjoyed this article, perhaps these vehicle related posts might be interesting:

• Expedition Land Rovers
• Land Rover Discovery
• Mercedes Benz W124