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(bells chime)
(wind whooshes)
(bell chime continues)
(wind roars)
(bell chime continues)
[Niko] A request I wasn't expecting.
Would I come along on a trip to the Andes Mountains,
way up an active volcano called Ojos del Salado,
the highest volcano on Earth
and the highest peak in Chile
to film a car.
(uplifting music)
And they said, "This all has to be kept secret."
(uplifting music continues)
A small but enthusiastic team of engineers, pro drivers,
and others would attempt to drive to a higher altitude
than anyone had driven a four-wheeled vehicle before.
(laborious music)
The car was a Porsche,
an experimental all-terrain model,
one they'd finished only a few weeks earlier.
My cameras and I would be along for the ride
to document everything. (drone buzzes)
The altitude driving challenge is considered one
of the most demanding records to achieve.
(guttural scream)
[Niko] Over the past two decades,
many from around the world have tried it
and many have failed.
(laborious music continues)
In the Andes, our base camp alone would be higher
than the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
The oxygen levels would be 50% lower than at sea level,
the thin air turning every breath
into a fight for survival. (shovel grates)
(Sven groans)
Easy, right?
No.
- [Niko] With deep respect for the mountain,
the environment, and the local communities,
we partnered with seasoned Chilean guides
who know the Andes like the back of their hand.
Their knowledge would help us navigate the terrain
using existing climbing paths
as we aimed to drive through sand
and volcanic ash to the Western summit
of Ojos del Salado,
to the highest point any four-wheeled vehicle
had ever been taken anywhere on Earth.
Little did I, or any of us, know that
for the next three years,
we would spend weeks on end
confronting one of the most hostile environments
on the planet, the high-altitude region
of the Atacama Desert
to meet the altitude challenge head on.
And as we'd soon find out,
we weren't the only ones trying.
This is our story.
(gritty music)
(Doris whirs)
(Edith revs)
[Support 1] Hey!
(Edith rumbles)
(gritty music continues)
(Edith bounces off the rev limiter)
Come on, accelerate!
(music slowly fades)
(dramatic music)
[Niko] First, a little context.
In its 76-year history,
Porsche has never shied away from challenges.
It's taken on some of the toughest races around the world
and has gone flat out
where there aren't any roads at all.
Throughout its history,
Porsche's tackled geographic challenges
to prove its engineering
from rallies and hill climbs
to endurance races across continents,
pushing innovations like high-performance
all-wheel drive systems and active suspensions.
And every idea originates from one place,
Porsche's home in Stuttgart.
(hopeful music)
(light switch clicks)
- One day in 2019, Frank Walliser spoke to me,
came to me with just a crazy idea.
- The original objective was we make a record
for a sports car.
We bring it to an altitude where no sports car
have ever been before.
To set a new altitude record.
This task is special,
is a chance you have once in a life.
Most difficult question is,
why are you doing things like that?
What is your motivation?
And in my case, it's definitely,
it's my thinking on the history book.
We have to make stories for the future
of our next generation
to keep the company alive, (Porsche rumbles)
to keep the heart of the company alive.
- Dr. Walliser is an outstanding person in the company.
He's connected to the board very well.
So he has the right connections to install projects,
to get the money for projects,
to motivate the staff to support this.
It's kind of in Frank's blood
to do these extreme types of projects.
He's been with Porsche for 30 years.
He's the guy that developed the 918 hypercar.
(Porsche 918 roars)
He's the guy that the board trusts to run Motor Sports.
(echo reverberating)
(uplifting music)
I got a presentation
where the name "Ojos" was written.
And I thought, "Ojos what?
What is it?"
Well, I had to look in Google Maps
where this volcano is,
and I even did not know how to pronounce it. (laughs)
The volcano, Ojos del Salado,
is the highest active volcano in the world.
It's in South America, in Chile,
a very remote area in the Atacama Desert.
- [Sven] My first reaction was, "Why there?
Why in the last edge of South America?"
If you compare it to other mountains,
they are really steep.
But the Ojos del Salado,
the steepness is a little bit less.
So this allow us
to drive up with the car.
[Sven] It's one of the most
hostile environments on Earth.
It's extremely dry air.
It's very cold.
At night, we had temperatures
around -20 degrees in the tent.
We have only half the oxygen than at sea level.
And most areas, you have a mixture of sand
and volcanic ash, which is very deep
if you drive with the car there.
- [Niko] It was in 2007 when a team with the Suzuki
climbed to a height of 6,688 meters on Ojos.
12 years later, a Mercedes Unimog
set a new record of 6,694 meters,
just beating the old record by six meters.
This was our target.
(wind whooshes)
(Doris rumbles to life)
(anxious music)
- We are gonna be working hard at high altitude,
so we need to be very attentive to the risks.
I've got a full suite
of advanced life support drugs with me,
along with splints, bandages,
and all the things we might need.
(anxious music continues)
(team members chatter indistinctly)
I’ll feed from there you pull from there.
(anxious music intensifies)
[Logistics 1] Start winching station.
Roger, roger, gonna start winching.
You have to be careful.
If it snaps, it's really a dangerous.
Hermanos, like a prophet
in the Andes, huh?
You are good to go.
[Niko] We thought we were prepared,
we were wrong.
A team with no prior experience
driving a brand new car
and tackling a mountain for the first time.
- [Stuart] Confirm that, don't touch walking poles
or ice axes, electrical storm overhead.
- [Niko] We spent weeks acclimatising at base camp,
hoping we could reach the summit in one day.
But the conditions took a turn,
and we had to spend the night on a mountain ridge.
A planned 10-hour ascent turned into an overnight stay
at a higher altitude than Camp One of Mount Everest.
(foreboding music)
(foreboding music continues)
We set up camp at Refuge Amistad.
It's not a place you wanna be.
And we start the next day early.
And it's sunny,
and we know the weather's coming in.
(tense music)
Stuart, could you tell me what day it is
and what we're up to?
- [Stuart] Do you wanna know the funniest thing?
- Yeah. - I actually can't tell you
what day it is.
We had to leave the car here
'cause we couldn't get any further 'cause of the conditions,
and it got dark, bitterly cold last night,
and this slope was just absolutely crucifying us.
(epic music)
(Doris rumbles)
(boulder thuds)
[Stuart] Oy!
(Doris rumbles)
- Yeah! Go, go! - Go, go. Yes, yes, yes!
(Doris rumbles)
Yeah! Yeah!
(epic music continues)
Yeah!
Ooh!
Whoa!
(epic music continues)
(thunder rumbles)
[Jens] We had thunderstorms, we had fog.
We had heavy snowfall.
(thunder rumbles)
We had such a fog
that we thought about tying all
the people together with rope.
(epic music continues)
Ojos beat us.
It took us weeks to get as high as we did.
And then we found ourselves evacuating
and running from a storm.
There was potential for up to three feet of snow.
And if we were stuck in that,
then we'd have to leave the car there.
As the decision was made to stop,
the morale was totally bad.
We go home with nothing,
no record.
This decision was, for me personally,
standing at the mountain, seeing what's possible
if the weather is fine.
It was really a hard moment.
(thunder rumbles)
(melancholic music)
- The first attempt was not published at all.
Also, the majority of the board members did not know.
We had to convince our board
that we have a good chance
climbing up the mountain.
When they're in and said,
"Well, we wanna go on a volcano,"
They said, "Yeah, what can happen and risk
and what if the car is not running in the altitude?"
I said, "Well, we tested that part.
And we have already been there." (chuckles)
Then they looked at me and said, "What?"
(groovy music)
- Yeah, Frank talked to me about this project.
And on the one hand side, very exciting.
On the other side, crazy.
Then I learned that they've already been there
on the volcano. (chuckles)
Then I thought, "Why not?"
- The board trusted this small group of people
and said, "Okay, they have some experience now.
We learned that just,
but okay, we released it.
That's okay, you try it."
First time we saw the car
was when it was unloaded in Chile.
That's how secret this was.
Little did we know it was only three months
since they started engineering the car
in some back office in Weissach.
(labels click)
- [Jens] Weissach is the development centre of Porsche.
There we develop all the model lines
and all the race cars as well.
- I think it was also a big motivation for the team
to do an extraordinary project,
a little bit what we call a submarine project,
so it was not clearly visible. (chuckles)
Some bosses of the team members
didn't know what we are doing.
People, they achieve amazing results
in very short time.
We are not walking through a proper decision process,
what we normally, German style,
are really good in.
And no question, no requirement from somebody.
When you do a project like this,
you always form a special set of people.
There is gonna be a lot of ropework.
This is going to be mountaineering with a car.
So maybe overall, about 25 people.
Didn't took long to have a list of names
in Chassis, Engine Department.
- A problem which has caused a lot of people
to get even 30 meters away from the record
and no further is a lack of engine performance.
- We have old cars that we can take before we scrap them,
and then we just started modifying it.
(car hood clicks)
My task in this project was:
please build a car that's capable
to run on the highest mountains in the world.
First question was, why do it with a 911?
Why don't choose a Cayenne?
But it take 10 seconds to realise that,
yes, the 911 is the right car to do this
because it's our icon car,
and this is an iconic project.
- [Niko] It would take a special car with a unique design
to tackle the mix of boulders and volcanic ash.
The engineers had to get creative,
taking technology and ideas from anywhere they could.
We knew from projects in the past
that there was a system called Warp Connector
we used in our 919 LMP1 car
that is able to give a very high roll stiffness
and very flexible articulation in the car.
(Porsche 919 roars)
When Achim explained what needs to be done
to implement the Warp Connector it was,
"Oh, we have to change a lot."
So when you look at the car,
you can see here the heave-roll separation.
And this is the Warp Connector
that connects the front suspension
with the rear suspension.
Because of the freeness in articulation,
the wheel loads are always equalised,
and this will increase traction.
(groovy music)
(Doris rumbles)
The interesting question was,
how to handle the altitude?
And one guy from the Engine Department,
who was Maurice Martini said,
"What is the challenge?
We already did a really altitude project."
(scene clicking)
[Sven] We had an altitude chamber
from a former project in end of the '80s
to build a 911 engine in a small plane.
- One week later, he came with the information
and said, "Believe it or not,
we still have it in Weissach.
[Sven] We searched this chamber,
and reactivated, and put the current
911 engine in.
This was very extreme.
[Niko] When the team decided to go
for the altitude record,
there were only three months to build the car
before the 2020 summer weather.
We called the first car Doris.
It was designed before anyone went to the mountain.
We came back from that first attempt
to a world much different than we left it.
- [Flight Attendant] ...keep it fastened while the seatbelt sign is on.
As a result of the outbreak of COVID-19...
(distant siren blares)
(distant horn honks)
- [Niko] With the world shut down due to COVID,
the team started thinking about
how they could make Doris better.
Then someone posed a question,
"Why modify the first car
when we could just build an entirely new second car?"
(labels click)
(groovy music)
- Second car was a classical motorsport decision
because of course, if you have two cars,
you have 50% of risk.
Two cars, one as a backup.
And of course, we had a new partner
with Romain Dumas.
(thrilling music)
(car engines rumble)
He's always in the extremes.
[Commentator 1] An unbelievable run.
He's everywhere.
(fans cheer)
He is very calculated.
He's one of these last multitalents
that have proven that they are the top drivers in the world.
Frank Walliser told me, "You know, ah,
we have an idea.
We would like to do this.
You want to drive?"
I say, "Yes, I want to drive."
For sure, it's could be a nice expedition
but again, I had no really clear idea
about what was the altitude story.
So I went to Weissach, and I drove the car.
They said it will be nice
that I give a kind of feedback.
- He had a lot of optimization ideas in the car.
I like the story, I like the idea,
but I want to be more involved than only driving
because you know, you don't win the race on a Sunday.
No, you need to prepare everything
before the event, you know.
And so I said, "Okay, if you want, I drive.
But not only that,
I prepare everything on the side."
Means the team, the people around.
The second car here in south of France.
[Jens] We became acquainted with all
the other new team members,
doctors, mountain guides
from Switzerland, from France.
(dramatic music)
- [Romain] We found (chuckles) we cannot call it a volcano,
but a very deep mountain here in south of France,
we start to test the car.
(Edith rumbles)
[Niko] With more testing and more time,
the second car was already showing improvements.
Embracing the future of fuel,
the new car would run entirely
on Chilean-made HIF e-Fuels,
synthetic fuels made from renewable energy, water,
and captured CO2.
- [Sven] We put an electric steering in the car.
We saved a lot of weight.
This steering system,
we are developing the future, you know,
to have less force on the steering.
It was not only about, you know,
publicity, marketing, no.
It was again performance
to try to improve everything
that I get less kickback, everything smooth.
(Edith roars)
I think and I hope to show that
this steering are already strong,
but for the future, it can be even better.
(leaves rustle)
(pensive music)
- [Niko] In the weeks leading up to the next attempt,
the team started to train at higher altitude.
When was the last time you were up here?
- Whew. - Yesterday.
- Yesterday? - Yeah.
- [Niko] So the Swiss are acclimatising now. Yeah.
[Joe] Yeah?
[Niko] Joke's on them, we're higher.
[Joe] Yeah. America!
(Niko chuckles)
[Niko] The car was ready.
Now, we had to get our bodies ready.
Medical checks determined who could go again
and who would have to stay behind.
Not everyone on the first expedition
was cleared for another high-altitude attempt.
So what we done we went in Switzerland
to a room that we could simulate the altitude,
already to see in term of fitness
if we have some good points or bad points
or how we can prepare.
You know, I've spent 10 years
getting to know Romain
'cause he's been racing here at Pikes Peak,
and we've been you know, helping him.
He was telling me about the penitentes
and all this just stuff
that sounded like crazy to me.
He could see that I was interested, I guess.
And he just looks at me, and kinda narrows his eyes,
and goes, "You should come."
And I'm like, "What do you mean I should come?"
And he's like, "You can help."
And I'm like, "Okay."
He goes, "It's miserable. You'll love it."
(pensive music continues)
- Well, we just arrived at the Cosmiques Refugio
around 3,600 meters.
(pensive music swells)
Niko, have you ever had any other filming assignments
that required this level of fitness or...
[Niko] Not like this, man.
- No? - Not this high.
(pensive music continues)
It's damn near spiritual.
It's like...
We know a lot of details now.
We know way better how to prepare everything.
The mentality of Porsche, maybe also my mentality,
is no second places.
We are looking for absolute records
for outstanding things in the world.
We try it again.
(lighthearted music)
(car engine whirs)
This place is called Don Juan's.
He spends, I think, most of his time
in a small hut here.
He offers this land (rooster crows)
that he rents as a space
for people passing through,
acclimatising for this journey.
(lighthearted music continues)
(team members chatter indistinctly)
(latch clicks)
Morale was very enthusiastic
because we had a optimised car,
we had a new team,
and we had a much better organisation from Romain.
So everybody was enthusiastic
that maybe
it's possible
to get the record. (truck door thuds)
Muy bien!
It's nice, huh? Wow.
Now myself, I am from south of France.
I like warm weather.
I like normally sea.
And right now we are in the middle of the wind
and the middle of the mountain.
You can see already snow all around.
It's already very cold as you can see,
but we are only at 3,750,
so we can imagine it will be a lot more
cooler later on and colder, so.
But we will see what will happen.
(lighthearted music intensifies)
(cutlery clatters)
(lighthearted music continues)
Walking, do exercise,
and reach maybe 4,500 will be the goal.
There is not a race today.
It's just good to climb up.
If someone don't feel good,
there's not a problem
if you don't reach this attitude,
it’s not finish the expedition.
(lighthearted music continues)
Well, when I went there the first time,
it's clear that, you know,
with the doctor and all these guy involved,
I knew that it will be complicated,
but I was never expected
that it will be so complicated.
Not about driving but about, you know, your own body.
And I mean, the first 10 days,
I had terrible headache.
I was completely sick.
I could not sleep on the night
for three or four days.
It was really bad.
It's sucking, like, the energy
- right out of your legs. - Yeah.
So today, 84 kilometer of wind.
Tomorrow will be 74
The temperature?
- [Romain] Temperature, do you really want to know?
Yep.
- So -18.
Tomorrow -18.
Okay, let's go.
(purposeful music)
(purposeful music continues)
(latch clinks)
(truck door grates)
(case thuds)
(mesmerising music)
[Jens] The car needs a name,
and the name is
Edith.
(mesmerising music intensifies)
(Edith rumbles)
- It is great to see Romain testing the car.
- Okay? - Yeah,
but we are quite high on the water,
so I would prefer to go in to have a look.
[Niko] Bringing it through its paces
is kind of an understatement.
- It's completely different than what we have in Europe.
The air density, it's a lot lower.
So we have to look what is now
with the cooling system, the pressure,
if the water is enough, and so on because all
is a little bit different here,
but everything looks okay so far.
So let's continue to double check.
(Edith rumbles)
(Edith hums)
(thrilling music)
(Edith rumbles)
[Romain] Perfect!
(resolute music)
When we arrived our base camp area
at approximately 4,500 meters altitude,
we realised that
we have massive remaining snow
and ice from the winter season before.
[Niko] We had the right team and cars,
but the volcano challenged us again.
Doubt crept in as conditions
were unlike anything we'd seen.
Despite it being the best time of year
for a summit in Chile, the route to Refugio Amistad,
the highest permanent camp on the mountain,
was buried under snow.
If we couldn't reach it, summiting was impossible.
And so we said, "Okay,
we need to find another,
another road, another idea, another itinerary."
(wind blows violently)
(resolute music continues)
- [Niko] These were unprecedented conditions.
During summer in this part of Chile,
we should have seen the least amount of snow
on the mountain.
Easy, right?
No.
(resolute music continues)
We're even thinking to go through Argentina.
- [Sven] Google Maps says no road on the Argentina side.
[Romain] But we didn't find anything.
- [Niko] So we focused on the only known path
to the next camp, trekking through snow
sometimes a meter deep.
With all the people working together
and do this hard work,
you need around one hour
to clean four meters.
(shovels grate)
Normally when we are on the sea level,
our oxygen saturation, 98%, 99%.
Here today, maybe
76, 75.
It's difficult to move.
(shovel grates)
(tense music)
What do you think about the proposal
to walk a little bit up?
- No. - No.
One moment, please let me speak.
- Okay. - Without any tool,
without nothing. (shovels grate)
Look at us, man.
We don't have any more energy.
So now, the very hard phase
of the project begins.
Plan is to drive with the car to an altitude,
hopefully, above 6,000 meters.
We don't know really. It'll be first time for the car.
So let's see what's going on.
The team is ready to give everything.
(hopeful music)
(car door thuds)
(Edith rumbles)
[Niko] Romain set off.
Hopes were high. Progress was fast.
(hopeful music continues)
(Edith revs)
(hopeful music continues)
(puzzling music)
Until it wasn't. (Edith rumbles)
If we could just get through the snow, avoid the ice fields,
and get on top of the glacier, we might have a chance.
And then we went further up,
and then see all these massive ice fields,
and we thought, "What the hell is going up here?"
The effect of attitude.
- [Niko] Yeah, can you explain what it's like?
It's unbelievable, breathless.
You make one step,
and you need two breaths minimum,
you can make the next step.
Totally... (pants)
[Guide 1] You're not enjoying?
At the moment, I'm not enjoying, yes.
(Edith revs)
[Guide 2] Yeah!
(laborious music)
(labels beep)
(Guide 2 cheers)
- The guy with the camera to the doctor to the guide,
everybody was helping.
(laborious music continues)
Was one of the hardest thing
I have ever done in my life.
(Guide 1 lets out a guttural scream)
(laborious music continues)
I decide on morning to go,
and I arrive at 5,900,
like that in three, four hours.
(Sven pants)
(serene music)
But after we had no chance, we went over 6,000,
and it was finished.
- [Sven] Even if we cleared this ice field,
it brings us to a glacier.
- [Jens] There was no chance going any higher.
It was a very bad feeling
not to get the record
to go home again with nothing.
(melancholic music)
(fountain splashes)
(distant bell tolls)
(relaxing music)
After the last attempt, I thought,
"Maybe that's it,
maybe we won't get a next chance
to climb higher."
It's the same like you run Le Mans,
you lose it two years in a row.
We always hoped to have a third chance.
So the car stayed in Chile,
but it was not sure to get a third chance.
- I was, of course, afraid of telling the decision
to the team if it was negative.
(relaxing music continues)
I said, "Yeah, go there.
Go with the team, try it again."
Try again, (chuckles)
which is crazy,
but that shows the amount of trust in Walliser.
This is a bold dream to get there
and doing this together with a team,
with the right mindset.
And at the end, I decided, "Go for it."
I am sure we can get to the top.
[interviewer] Did they doubt you at all?
Were they, like, hesitant?
Yes, for sure because you know,
at the end of the day,
it's a question of it's not about the car,
it's not about the team,
it can be only about the weather,
and nobody can predict the weather.
You cannot buy it, you cannot predict it.
(snow patters) (thunder rumbles)
So they said, "Okay, we try one more time."
It was relatively clear,
"Okay, we go for a third time."
It was also coming out of corona,
motivation was high in doing things like that.
But for a small time, I was also thinking,
"If the third attempt would not be successful,
there will be no fourth,
no fourth attempt to go there."
(anxious music)
- [Romain] We finally arrive at our base camp.
You could see a lot less snow.
(mystical music)
- Good weather up there is still 30-mile-an-hour wind
and maybe 10 degrees Fahrenheit or something like that.
It's cold.
It kind of abuses you as a human.
It's like South Mediterranean,
warm sand, sandy beach
with a lack of oxygen.
I don't know if we can say nice day,
more like a hard day.
(wind buzzes)
(mystical music continues)
[Niko] From day one, our only challenger
had been the altitude,
but now we had competition.
Another team was going for the same record,
and they were aiming to reach the summit
in an electric-powered truck.
Despite of this competition,
you have to follow your own plan.
- The only problem we have on this mountain is the wind now.
It will reach, like, 90,
even 100 kilometers per hour.
- [Romain] So we had to wait, and wait, and wait.
- [Sven] The window was exactly the 2nd of December.
If we could not use this day,
we had to wait for one week to have a second chance.
(wind whooshes)
Yeah, so just the aim
is to explain what we do tomorrow at what time,
who is doing what.
Congratulations to be late.
You see, he's not German.
(team members laugh)
So the aim is to arrive, more or less,
at nine o'clock at the glacier.
(tense music)
[Niko] Our competitive spirit kicked in.
Having come this far,
we weren't about to hand the record to a rival.
Knowing we only had one day with no wind,
we set out early.
And we got a head start on the competition
trying for a summit on the same day.
[Romain] I knew that on my own,
I can go directly to 6.2 without any help.
(Edith rumbles)
(gasp)
(thrilling music)
(Edith rumbles)
(rocks clatter)
(tire thuds)
(mesmerising music)
The car reached the glacier,
which was, let's call it,
where the real battle began.
First, we arrived at 6.2,
and it was really a big piece of ice.
I mean, this car is ready
or was done to be on the sand, on the rock,
but not really on ice.
We had no spike on the tires.
And I say, "Okay, now it's really the place
that first difficulty is just in front of me."
I can see, the ice,
I can see these 200, 300 meters to go through.
(Edith rumbles)
(foreboding music)
(Edith revs)
Quickly after 50-meter I was stuck,
I say, "Oh, that will be a long day."
Because at the time, it was only nine o'clock
in the morning.
So we start with a rope,
we start to try to pull the car.
(ominous music)
(Edith revs)
(ominous music)
And actually, it was a kind of round
like that on a crest.
On the left side, if it go very bad,
you could crash.
I think we'll be not here anymore to speak about.
On the right side, a little bit smoother.
So I said, "Okay, better I try to be on the middle,
but if something is happening, I need to turn right."
(Edith creaks)
And so we lost a lot of time,
two hours now to go through this 100
or 200 meter of ice.
We went through,
but it was already 11:30.
And after, was the balcony, going up.
[Niko] With the glacier cleared,
Romain has start to really push.
I took a lot of speed,
and there, I realised that the traction of the car
and so on was great.
- [camera operator] Holy cra-
(dramatic music)
(Edith rumbles)
I mean, it was incredible
to watch this car just eating volcanic,
you know, rubble,
just eating up the side of the hill.
(Edith rumbles)
(dramatic music continues)
(Edith rumbles)
(dramatic music continues)
(hammer pounds)
- Yeah, we're trying to set up a solid belay,
but the rock is pretty sh--ty here.
(equipment clinks)
[Niko] We were making progress,
but the more we pushed,
the harder the volcano pushed back.
Now, I can see that it
start to be really, really tough.
And also on the radio when I was asking,
"Where we are?
Where are the other guide?
Are they ready?
Is the rope, blah, blah, blah?"
I could see that reaction,
you know, of people were not the same.
(Guide 3 speaks in foreign language)
- I remember talking with other team members,
and I was like, I didn't remember
if I said something out loud to them or just thought it.
You know, the lack of oxygen
really does take ahold of your brain.
Your brain maybe
does not work properly at sea level.
Yourself do not realise that. (wind whooshes)
Also between them, was starting,
you know, to have, "Hey. Please can you answer?
Why you are not here?
What is happening?"
- [Jens] For sure, the decision-making process is changed.
- [Sven] You have to take care to push not too much.
- [Romain] You don't need to have the watch to look the attitude.
You can feel it with how you can breathe,
how you can speak,
how you can walk with the pressure in your head.
(tense music)
(tense music continues)
(Edith revs)
(tense music continues)
[Niko] Cresting the ridge, we finally
caught sight of the record point
just 200 meters away,
but we'd have to conquer the steepest incline
we faced so far.
We mark the GPS point from Unimog
or from the Samurai so we knew exactly
where is the line we need to cross.
(throbbing music)
(team members chatter indistinctly)
(Edith rumbles)
(throbbing music continues)
(labels beep)
(throbbing music continues)
(team members chatter in foreign language)
[Guide 4] Whoa!
[Guide 5] Unbelievable!
(Guide 5 applauding)
- [Joe] I think that's the proper world record right there.
We came to the balcony,
where we knew that the record was.
- [Niko] We know that now the car is higher than they were.
We have to have a new record.
So when we checked the GPS,
that was a confusing moment.
For some reason, the calibration's off.
I went to see the GPS.
The altitude is 25 meter lower
than we should be.
There was some question whether
we would be able to claim the record.
It was at that point that we decided that
we had to make for the summit.
Mika said, "Okay, we have to continue."
I look at him and said, "Well, well, well.
Where we could go, you know?
We cannot go higher.
We are in front of a rock here."
He said, "Ah, look, if we go on the left..."
"We go around,
and we'd arrive on the top of the volcano."
Are you sure?
He said, "No, but anyway,
if not, we don't have the record."
Okay, we turn left.
[Joe] It was a difficult decision
because we were faced with another very steep grade.
I could see the sky, nothing more.
Always with my foot on the brake in case of something.
I think it will not change anything anyway,
but you know, "Okay, release the brake, winch."
(Romain hums)
Brake, the car going back.
"Okay, winch again."
It was like that.
- We knew that if we could get one past one pitch,
the rest was a smooth arc
all the way up to the summit.
(mesmerising music)
So I need to stay on this crest.
[Joe] If the car slides one way,
we might find it in an irretrievable
part of the mountain.
(mesmerising music continues)
It's at this point that I say,
"Okay, I have to go this, this, that, this, that.
Right, left, right, left around this big rock."
It's our obligation that we really
write something down history books
when in 30 years, somebody flips the pages back,
and they're all empty and said,
"What did they do in that time?"
We have to write things in, real stuff.
Things that really happened.
Also real heroes.
(mesmerising music continues)
- There is now one slope standing in the way
of Romain from reaching the summit.
(thrilling music)
- I knew that I need to take a lot of speed.
(thrilling music continues)
When I smashed the rock, I kept maximum throttle.
I said, "Okay, if it's missing something,
it's missing something,
but we will be there."
(thrilling music continues)
(Edith roars)
(mesmerising music)
(shovel grates)
(Guide 6 laughs)
[Niko] And that's our story.
We were a small passionate team
that never gave up until we reached the summit
with a car named Edith.
(wind whooshes)
Romain, what a life!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm really proud
because it was not a competition.
It was not something about time,
but it was something about human being
and also push the human
and the 911 on the limit.
(grand music)
It is so extreme to go with a 911
up to this altitude.
This kind of passion, and motivation,
and fighting spirit.
(grand music continues)
(lighthearted music)
He told me, "We made it."
We sat down and with tears in the eyes,
and it was so emotional.
I could see this message,
and then it started rethinking.
I said, "Wow, that's an achievement."
And I was really touched by that moment.
I could not talk to anybody.
And it took me five or ten minutes really
to realise what has happened.
And then I really started running around
and telling it to everybody.
To be part of this project,
to be part of a team
of such great people,
yeah, in total, it's just one of the best
experiences of my life.
(lighthearted music continues)
I think you have to be a little bit crazy
to imagine this project.
(lighthearted music continues)