José Megre (1942 – 2009)

Born on the 26 March, 1942, in Lisbon, José Megre early began to take an interest in automobiles. After making a graduation on Mechanical Engineering, with a specialization in Automobiles in London, England (1963-66), José Megre decided to take part in some motor sports competitions.
In the 70s, the former pilot added to his curriculum three participations in the World Championship rally. Since 1982, he dedicated exclusively to the cross country discipline with highlights at the pioneer participation at the Rally Paris Dakar where he presented at the wheel of a Portuguese construction vehicle - the UMM. He also participated in the Paris Cape Town rally and in the Paris-Moscow-Beijing.

The "father" of the cross country competitions in Portugal

As an organizer, he was responsible for the creation of the Portalegre’s Marathon, in 1987, and the Baja Portugal, in 1988, a competition that is now known as Rally Transibérico, the most important European cross country trial, that is also included at the World Cup of this discipline. Within his range of organizations, it can also be mentioned the 24 Hours of TT and Transportugal.
Since 1987 he was responsible for the concept and organization of several intercontinental expeditions in Africa, Asia and America with more than 15 000 km each of them. He founded the Clube Todo Terreno in 1982 and the Clube Aventura in 1984.

José Megre the traveler

Compulsive traveler, he visited 193 of 194 sovereign countries recognized in the planet - it just lacked Iraq.
It is important to notice that, the trips of Jose Megre weren’t made with the sole objective of getting the stamp in the passport. His normal standard was to do, by car, the maximum milage in all of them, trying to have the best knowledge of the countries where he went, having covered about a million kilometres outside Portugal. Even in the last visited countries, most of them under severe instability and traffic restrictions, he managed to drive several hundred kilometres in each of them.
In the past two years he visited almost 20 countries and among them was Liberia, Afghanistan, North Korea, Nigeria, Zaire, Somalia, the very small Nauru and Tuvalu in the Pacific, Tajikistan and Saudi Arabia, where Jose Megre had been for three times, driving a total of 12 000 kilometres. This was his last and important discovery.
In 2007 he made his third trip by car from Portugal to the South of Africa, this time with destination Maputo in Mozambique. But, previously he had already crossed 15 times the Sahara desert in six different itineraries. He knows all the countries of Africa through these and several other trips that he made in this continent, always by road.
Jose Megre started to travel abroad, by car, at 13 years of age, first with his parents and, until now, he hasn’t stopped. Beyond the itineraries in the African continent referred, he crossed Europe and Asia for three times, making two connections between the Atlantic and the Pacific, one in the Paris Paris-Beijing Rally, another one in the Transiberian Train, and another that took him from Lisbon to India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet by car.
In the two American continents, he crossed for two times the United States and once Canada, both from coast to coast. He also covered all the countries of Central America and, for four times, South America, in journeys of about 15 000km each, always in different itineraries.