Beetles, the first production cars to be used in Antarctica. The first of these was named "Antarctica 1". In December 1997 into February 1998 two AT44, 4x4 cars (built in Iceland by Arctic Trucks with tire size of 44-inch tall) joined an expedition by the Swedish Polar Institution (SWEA). The cars got used to transport people and supplies from the Ice shelf to WASA station, to perform scanning of the snow and support a drilling expedition to on the Antarctica Plateau 76°S 8°03'W. This is the first time tire based vehicles successfully travel on the Antarctica high plateau. In 2005, a team of six people took part in the Ice Challenger Expedition. Travelling in a specially designed six wheel drive vehicle, the team completed the journey from the Antarctic coast at Patriot Hills to the geographic South Pole in 69 hours. In doing so they easily beat the previous record of 24 days. They arrived at the South Pole on December 12, 2005. The team members on that expedition were Andrew Regan, Jason De Carteret, Andrew Moon, Richard Griffiths, Gunnar Egilsson and Andrew Miles. The expedition successfully showed that wheeled transport on the continent is not only possible but also often more practical. The expedition also hoped to raise awareness about global warming and climate change. From start of December 2008 into February 2009, four AT44, 4x4 cars were used to support a ski race by Amundsen Omega 3, from S82° 41' E17° 43' to South Pole. A film was made of this race by BBC called "On Thin Ice" with Ben Fogle and James Cracknell. The cars started from Novo airbase at S70° 49' E11° 38', establish a route onto the plateau through the crevasse areas in the Shcherbakov Mountain Range driving nearly to the start line of the ski race. For the return journey each car covered between with one fuel depot on the way. From 2008 to date (Dec 2015) tire based cars, AT44 4x4 and AT44 6x6 have been used every season to support various NGO and scientific expedition/projects, supporting flights, fuel drops, filming, skiers, biker, a tractor, collecting snow samples and more. The combined distance covered on the Antarctica Plateau is over and even though towing capacity is much lower than for most belt based vehicles, the tire based cars multiply the travel speed and use only a fraction of the fuel making this an