Peking To Paris: The Crazy True Story Of The 1907 Motor Race

While every other car commercial seems to feature a trek through open terrain, when cars first started becoming popular, no one thought to use them to cross a continent or two. At least, not until a French newspaper decided to goad people into trying. Had Le Matin never poked fun at race car drivers for going around in circles, the 1907 Peking to Paris Race may never have existed.

In many ways, the 1907 Peking to Paris motor race was one of a kind. And at a time when automobiles were only just becoming popular in Europe and had yet to proliferate across Asia, for many regions this was the first time a car had ever made its way across the lands.

The resulting race wasn't even meant to be a race, but it seemed like some of the contestants couldn't help but show off all the best that money can buy. And although all but one ended up technically making it to Paris, does it count as completing a race if you're in police custody? This is Peking to Paris: The crazy true story of the 1907 motor race.

By the time the race, sponsored by Le Matin, was scheduled to start on June 10, 1907, 40 different teams had accepted the challenge to drive from Beijing to Paris and paid the entry fee of 2,000 francs. But in the end, only five teams actually managed to get their cars to Beijing in time for the race, DriveTribe writes.

According to History Info, the route was set to go from the French Embassy in Beijing up to Ulaanbaatar, further north to Krasnoyarsk, and then west through Russia, passing through Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, and Moscow before heading south through Vilnius and Berlin until finally reaching Paris. A total distance of roughly 10,000 miles. Upon arriving in Paris, the first who finished would receive a Magnum of Mumm Champagne. Other than that, there were no rules whatsoever.

But because so few of the participants were able to show up, the race was technically cancelled by the committee who was running it.

Five different drivers competed in the race, representing the automobiles of three different countries. In addition to Auguste Pons, Georges Cormier and Victor Collignon also drove French automobiles. The Netherlands were represented by Charles Godard and Prince Scipione Borghese drove an Italian automobile.

In "Quest for Speed," Peter Gosling describes the automobiles driven by the various contenders. Prince Borghese had a vehicle specially commissioned with a seven-litre grand-prix Itala engine, while Godard drove a Dutch Spyker. With their sponsorship, Pons drove a Contal while Cormier and Collignon drove the de Dion cars offered by Marquis de Dion.

The drivers also weren't alone, driving with at least a person in the vehicle. Godard was accompanied by Jean du Taillis, who wrote for Le Matin, Cormier brought journalist Edgardo Longoni, who wrote for Il Secolo, and Borghese drove with journalist Luigu Barzini, writing for Corriere della Sera, as well as his mechanic Ettore Guizzardi. Collignon and Pons drove with mechanics only instead of journalists, bringing Jean Bizac and Oscar Foucault, respectively, according to ERA. Since the journey planned to follow the telegraph line, this meant that journalists could send updates throughout the journey.

Some of the drivers and their vehicles were comparatively better prepared than others for what awaited them in this trek. With no preexisting fuel stations, Borghese sent camel caravans out in advance to set up fuel supplies, tire replacements, and other provisions at "strategic points" along the route, according to "Motor Racing's Strangest Races."

And although the Itala gave Borghese's car more power, that made it heavier and resulted in the car sinking in the Mongolian marshland at one point. While some local people passed by and showed no interest in helping retrieve the sinking car, eventually some horsemen came by and their oxen was used to retrieve the car. Throughout the 1907 Beijing to Paris race, local people and their animals ended up being frequently enlisted to help push or tow the cars along the drivers' journey. 

Meanwhile, Pons' Contal was woefully inadequate for the journey from the get-go. In "Race of the Century," Fenster writes that Pons repeatedly insisted that "a flyweight three-wheeler was indeed the very car to take on a six-thousand mile journey across two continents." This despite the fact that his car was basically just a tricycle. Pons also did a poor job of preparing for food, water, and fuel, which would ultimately be his downfall. Borghese was comparatively one of the luckier ones in the respect of being found and aided, as was Pons. When Godard ended up stranded, those who passed by simply ignored him.

Meanwhile, Godard was also having difficulties in the Gobi Desert. DriveTribe writes that Godard and du Taillis ended up stranded without fuel for their Spyker, managing to stay alive by drinking radiator water.

Although the de Dion crews had promised to send fuel from Udde, the next town 120 miles away, after two days, the fuel still hadn't arrived. By this point, du Taillis was suffering from malaria and dysentery and was unable to move and Godard realized that unless he left du Taillis to go find help, they were both going to die in the desert. According to Motor Sport, Godard set off into the desert, and within two hours he returned with a few Mongolian people. Somehow, Godard managed to convince them not only to ride and bring back fuel from Udde, but to offer some camels to tow the Spyker car as well.

But even though Godard fell back on track, the Spyker was clearly struggling. At times the car was simply pulled by horses, and when the back axle lost all its oil from a hole, Godard fixed it "by packing raw bacon through the hole and securing it with a wooden spigot."

On August 10, Borghese became the first driver to make it to Paris, where he was "hailed a hero." Although his journey hadn't been entirely perilous, falling into a ravine at one point and almost being hit by a train at another, Borghese had so much of a lead that when he was in Russia, he took a detour off the route and went up to St. Petersburg for a party, according to The Vintage News. Despite his many luxuries and advantages, Borghese wasn't really driving in style. The Itala that was being driven was an open car, and so Borghese, Barzini, and Guizzardi were frequently exposed to torrential rain as they traversed Russia.

In the end, it took the Itala two months to reach Paris from Beijing. His accompanying journalist Barzini would write "I cannot convince myself that we have come to the end, that we have really arrived," per DriveTribe. Meanwhile, Borghese explained his success to reporters, saying "Every day when we awoke we concentrated on nothing but getting the day's stage done well. Such a journey requires more patience than daring."

The Itala that made the 10,000 mile journey was shown at the Olympia Motor Show the following year. But as it was being shipped to New York afterwards for another exhibition, it fell into the water and was badly damaged, making it the only car in history to "survive a 10,000 mile race but not the subsequent exhibition," writes Tribballs.

The following year, automobiles raced around the world once more, this time from New York to Paris. Le Matin also sponsored this race, with the New York Times joining as co-sponsor. Originally, the drivers were meant to travel the entirety of the distance "without use of a boat," writes Fenster in "Race of the Century," and the route required them to drive across the Bering Strait.

Beginning in February, by the time the drivers made it to Alaska, the Parisian race committee decided that it was going to be impossible to drive across Alaska. Instead, Smithsonian Magazine writes that the decision was made to instead drive back down to Seattle and from there sail to Vladivostok before making their way through Russia and Europe.

In the end though, it wasn't the fastest driver who ended up winning the 1908 New York to Paris race. Although Hans Koeppen, representing Germany, arrived in Paris first on July 26, he was docked two weeks from his time because he used a train in the western United States. Meanwhile, George Schuster, who was representing the United States in the Thomas Flyer, was given two weeks off of his time for making the attempted trek into Alaska. So when Schuster cruised into Paris on July 30, he was declared the winner of the 1908 New York-Paris race. And upon arriving in Paris, Schuster and his crew were almost arrested for driving a car without headlights.