Germany - A Porsche Cayenne, driven by Porsche cars Great Britain technician, Richard Payne, achieved a new Guinness World Records title on 21 April 2017 by towing an Airbus A380 over a distance of 42-metres. It feat smashed the previous record for ‘heaviest aircraft to be towed by a production car’ by a margin of 115-tonnes.
Air France devoted one of its fleet of ten A380 aircrafts to the project and the contrast between the two machines was striking. The Cayenne (measuring 4.8-metres in length) was connected to the most sophisticated and largest (73-metres) passenger aircraft in the world via a special towing attachment that sat on the Cayenne’s standard tow bar.
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Payne said: “It did it – I’m so relieved! We don’t usually go this far to test the limits of our cars but I think today we got pretty close.
"I could tell that it was working hard but the Cayenne didn’t complain and just got on with it. Our cars can go a bit beyond what our customers might expect – they’re designed to be tough.”
The Guinnes World Records title was set by a standard Cayenne S Diesel. The achievement was then repeated by the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S, cementing Porsche firmly in the record books, whether the car be petrol or diesel.
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Pravin Patel, adjudicator to the Guinness World Records attempt: “I’ve verified some amazing record attempts during my time as a Guinness World Record adjudicator – watching a Porsche Cayenne tow one of the largest aircraft in the world definitely ranks as among the most spectacular.
"My congratulations go out to all those involved in achieving this remarkable feat.”