Thanks for that, great story. I love your macro assessment of the period as much as this specific machine; beautiful take on the big picture. Yea first thing I thought was those smooth tires ar a no-go!
I have read about this thing a few times over the years. Very interesting time and story. The last deal I saw they went into detail about the ice shelf breaking up and that it probably did drift away.
If I were one of those "fuck you" millionaires and my wife wouldn't allow me to build a space program, I'd drop a few hundred mil on an expedition with the single purpose of finding this thing. How much fun would that be?
I believe Bob Chandler, creator of the Bigfoot trucks, sourced some of these same tundra tires for one of his trucks back in the 80s, fwiw.
The America and British used Christchurch New Zealand as a staging post for Antarctic projects. There is still an American scientific base here. We saw much of the technology as it passed through. I well remember the old piston engined C124 Globemasters. used to transport men and equipment to the ice. these were slow, so had to leave around 3am in order to make Antarctica in daylight. There was a "point of no return" where a decision had to be made about whether to proceed or return to Christchurch. There was only enough fuel for the trip with vey little reserve. Our own Kiwi explorers in 1957/58 used British built Ferguson tractors with only minimum modifications. Definitely low tec. Very different to the Russian machine. https://www.news.com.au/national/ns...r-in-1958/news-story/d3b1bd6b5c5e967bf62c160a
The Jalopy Journal
