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DIVERS DRIVE TOYOTA ON SEA BOTTOM FOR 7 KMS

An orange 1978 Toyota, named the “Mud Crab,” traveled seven kms on the sea bottom, 30 meters underwater, beneath Darwin, Australia’s busy harbor, in a stunt that has broken two world records.

It took a team of 30 people more than 12 hours to get the job done. Commercial divers with air tanks rotated into the driver’s seat every 15 minutes because the underwater pressure at 30 meters only allowed them to stay under that long.

The Mud Crab entered the water at nine am on Saturday. On the underwater journey, the car got stuck a dozen times, and the drivers had to deal with the threat of saltwater crocodiles as well as pipelines in order to navigate the waterproof, electric four-wheel drive to the far shore at Mindil Beach.

“I was stressing out a bit,” project leader Tommy Lawrence said. “We had piles of problems. Certain sections of harbor were so muddy that we sank like a rock.

“We were constantly getting stuck, winching, and towing.”

Around nine pm, 12 hours later and five hours behind schedule, the Toyota emerged from the dark water to the screams of hundreds of excited Australians.

“It was wild,” Lawrence said, after he watched the final moments from an adjacent boat.

“There was a giant party and disco on the beach; thousands were cheering, all holding their phones lit up to light the way.”

The mixed team of engineers, divers, and petrol heads is confident the colossal effort, which took a year of planning, has set world records for the longest and deepest underwater drive.

Lawrence got the idea for the project from a previous attempt at the same records, made in 1983.

In that failed attempt, the car was forced to surface three kms from the start, after hitting a rock ledge. “I remembered the story and thought, ‘We could try and have a crack at that,’” Lawrence said. “The [team] was like, ‘Hell, yeah, that would be a lot of fun.’”

It took about six months to restore their 40 Series Toyota LandCruiser which, at the time of purchase, was not road safe. They fitted it with a waterproof electric engine and four 150 kg, water-filled tires.

They had found the Mud Crab in Brisbane in eastern Australia. Lawrence told the seller that they only had AUD$5,000 but planned to drive it under and across Darwin Harbor. The seller liked the idea so much that he lowered his sales price of AUD$7,000 to AUD$5,000.

After “a lot of late-night phone calls and Zoom calls,” the team was formed, including many different skills from engineers and mechanics to car enthusiasts and commercial divers.

They started by converting the old Toyota into an electrically powered vehicle. Then, to improve the already waterproof nature of its driveline, all parts were further insulated with silicone oil.

Next, the conventional tires were swapped out for two pairs of Maxxis Trepadors that could handle the sandy ocean floor. But, they could not be filled with air, since that would provide too much buoyancy, so, they were all filled with water instead, causing their weight to reach 150 kgs each.

When they finally got the Mud Crab to Darwin in northern Australia, they met a man at a pub who happened to run a tool shop in the area, and he said, “Take whatever you need.”

“It was like Christmas,” Lawrence said. “We slept in the shop, got up, had coffee, and started working the tools.”

They only tested the car once in salt water before attempting the world record underwater drive.

The orange LandCruiser entered the Australian Sea at nine in the morning, and the team expected to reach the far side of Darwin Harbor by five in the afternoon, but they underestimated the difficulty of driving on the sometimes sandy, sometimes muddy ocean floor.

At around nine pm, about 12 hours after leaving Mandorah Beach, the Mud Crab finally drove out of the water to the cheers of hundreds of excited car enthusiasts

Because of the costs involved, the team will not be applying for official Guinness World Records, but their seven-km underwater drive is widely considered the longest and deepest ever made, by quite a large margin.

Even with its Darwin journey complete, the Mud Crab’s story is not over. Lawrence expects a documentary on the subject to come out next February.

In the meantime, there is talk of putting it on display at the Darwin Mall for a few days.

“Then, we’ll recommission it, rust-proof it, and get it going again,” Tommy Lawrence says.

© theguardian.com odditycentral.com

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