Currently, passenger vehicles used for extreme conditions like mountain / glaciers rescue or adventure tourism, need extreme modification, for 46” diameter and larger tyres. Existing vehicles are highly modified vans and SUVs, with typical modification cost of hundreds of thousands of euros, and very high maintenance costs. Also, speed and maneuverability in rough terrain is limited, a critical factor for Emergency and Rescue especially. Road safety is severely compromised. A big market limitation is that the necessary modifications make such vehicles non-road-legal outside Iceland and Antarctica.
ÍSAR is the world’s first high-performance passenger vehicle purpose-built for 46” diameter and larger tyres, yet is fully EU road vehicle regulation compliant. Being co-designed and co-developed with Iceland’s adventure tour operators and the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue, ÍSAR is purpose-made for end users’ needs, thus offering a completely new solution in performance, comfort, weight, energy consumption, cost and image. A major goal of the project is to reduce/eliminate fossil fuel use.