Press Releases

With its arrival in Rome and a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Overland 12 expedition that led to the Iveco vehicles making the exploration of the boundless African continent, officially ends. It was a long and difficult path, full of pitfalls, which combined the charm of adventure with humanitarian objectives.
The fleet of vehicles, in the classic orange livery that made them famous, the new Iveco off-road range and two of the legendary "bonneted" 330.30 ANW 6x6 vehicles, specially refurbished after so many years and many expeditions, arrived in Rome after travelling over 50,000 kilometres through 30 different countries
A route that led vehicles and participants in the expedition led by Beppe Tente (composed of a core of 16 people spread over four shifts, making a total of over 40) to travel across the continent to South Africa and then back, crossing Central Africa and Egypt before concluding the trip in Rome. A fascinating and ambitious itinerary for both parts of the trip, both the roughness of many road sections, as well as geographical barriers encountered along the way, in complex areas from the point of view of the environment, safety and logistics, but certainly for the rich variety of people, landscapes and wildlife.
The difficulties of African routes through deserts, savannahs and forests, were added to those derived from the early arrival of the rainy season that has sorely tested the reliability and robustness of the vehicles, so that the twelfth edition of Overland is to be considered as the most challenging adventure by far, but one even more fascinating than all the others.
But Overland has always been very conscious of the humanitarian aspect and in this expedition has therefore tried, wherever possible, to help the people it met on the journey. To this end, a specially equipped version of the Iveco Daily was dedicated to an alternating shift of four doctors from the resuscitation and first aid department at the University of Parma, who have collected statistical data and brought new knowledge through advanced techniques of telemedicine. In this way it was possible to provide help to the many medical outposts passed during the expedition but above all to help with promoting maternal and child health care and prevention of some of the major diseases afflicting the African continent.
After having followed the long journey on the Iveco internet site, www.iveco.com, fans can follow the crossing of the many African nations and the performance of Iveco vehicles, in what may be considered the most difficult challenge in the long history of Overland by a specifically dedicated Rai Uno television series to be broadcast shortly.
Iveco
Iveco designs, manufactures, and markets a broad range of light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles, off-road trucks, city and intercity buses and coaches as well as special vehicles for applications such as fire fighting, off-road missions, defence and civil protection.
Iveco employs almost 25,000 people and runs 24 production units in 11 Countries in the world using excellent technologies developed in 6 research centres. Besides Europe, the company operates in China, Russia, Australia and Latin America. Around 5,000 sales and service outlets in over 160 Countries guarantee technical support wherever in the world an Iveco vehicle is at work.
Torino, 5th July 2010

For broadcast-standard video supporting this press release, please visit www.thenewsmarket.com/iveco.