A modified Porsche 911 now holds the altitude document for a climb achieved by a wheeled automobile, after reaching the height of the west ridge of Chile’s Ojos del Salado, the world’s tallest volcano with a summit at 22,615 toes.

With racing driver Romain Dumas behind the wheel, the 911, which featured a raised chassis and ran on carbon-neutral e-fuel, on Dec. 2 reached a top of twenty-two,093 toes. That beats the earlier document of 21,961.94 toes, set in 2020 by a pair of Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5023 off-road vans on the identical volcano.

Close to the summit, Dumas confronted excessive circumstances, together with air roughly half as dense as at sea stage, and temperatures as little as 12 levels F.

“I’ll always remember this expertise,” Dumas stated in an announcement. “It was a rare feeling to drive the place no automobile has gone earlier than.”

Modified Porsche 911 reaches 22,093 toes on Chile’s Ojos del Salado – Dec. 2023

Dumas beforehand tackled the volcano in 2022 in a apply run. The height of the west ridge is the one path accessible by a automobile, and the purpose the place he stopped on the document run was absolutely the peak of the ridge, which means the document will likely be powerful to surpass. Dumas, with a help staff and a second automobile readily available, set off at 3:30 am and completed at 3:58 p.m.

The e-fuel used for the run was a batch from the Porsche-backed pilot plant situated in Chile. The artificial gas is produced in a course of that makes use of electrical vitality generated by a wind turbine to type hydrogen by way of electrolysis of water, primarily the reverse of what occurs in a hydrogen gas cell. The hydrogen is then mixed with CO2 captured from the air, in a synthesis course of that creates gasoline and liquefied fuel.

The modified 911 relies on the 911 Carrera 4S. The automobile’s twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter flat-6 was utterly inventory however paired with a 7-speed handbook transmission with decrease gear ratios than inventory to allow exact, mild throttle inputs at low velocity.

Modified Porsche 911 reaches 22,093 toes on Chile’s Ojos del Salado – Dec. 2023

The important thing modification required for traversing the tough terrain have been portal axles, which along with chunky off-road tires elevated floor clearance to virtually 14 inches and required widened wheel arches to be fitted.

Porsche additionally put in a tool referred to as a Warp-Connecter. Tailored from motorsports, the gadget permits fixed wheel masses even when the chassis experiences excessive actions, and in consequence, it improves traction. Differential locks and a steer-by-wire system have been additionally added.

Whereas Porsche does not plan to place a 911 this rugged into manufacturing, the automaker final yr launched the limited-edition 911 Dakar providing much more off-road functionality than a inventory 911.