Students endure harsh Sahara trek with old Renaults 4L
The four students from HAN4L who took part in the 4L Trophy rally through the Moroccan desert are heading back to Arnhem. Their old Renault 4s miraculously made it through the race unscathed!
Together with 1,400 other teams, the Arnhem teams crossed the Sahara desert for several days. In the end, they finished in places 567 and 289 in Marrakech. “Nice places right? Although we didn’t do it for the ranking,” says student Thomas Kersten. “From the HAN Automotive Engineering course, we mainly want to improve the cars. And an important part is helping humanitarian causes.”
In Morocco, the group handed out teaching materials to children who are underprivileged. From Arnhem, they lugged 200 kilos of notebooks, calculators, pens and laptops in the car. Thomas: “The most special thing about our trip was the contrast. In the city you saw luxury, outside you saw poverty. In some villages, children came out en masse when they heard our cars and everyone was suddenly in an uproar. Some even threw their bikes in front of the car, they would do anything to get some from us.”
During the 8,000-kilometre trip, Thomas and his teammates encountered a lot of challenging traffic situations. “Towards the end of the race, there were no more roads. They were plains full of stones, bumps and potholes. Cars got stuck in loose sand and mud. We regularly thought: if only the whole thing doesn’t fall apart.”
Nevertheless, the 4L-cars from the 1980s held up well, except for a few minor glitches. “Sometimes a plug fell apart and a bracket of the roof rack broke off. But fortunately everything was repairable,” Thomas says.
Focus on hybrid
When the cars arrive back at HAN they have not yet been written off. “Then the next team management will take over. They will start preparing for the next rally. And then some things will be improved like the roof racks, which turned out not to be strong enough. Moreover, we are building a hybrid version of the car. We will see if we can drive that next year, to reduce emissions.”
Source: Omroep Gelderland
Photography: HAN4L
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