The popular feeling that the project was damned as eternally impossible was summed up, by a period article, from Autocar’s crushing comment on Le Matin’s challenge: ‘The proposal to run a race from Pekin to Paris is one of those hardy annuals that crop up…when there is nothing else to talk about in the automobile world…At first a bold and original suggestion, its repetition has become slightly irritating, the more so since it has done little except to serve as a means for personal advertisement.’
To cross Asia and Europe in one ‘raid’ (as the French called this type of event) – was it possible? The French, as the greatest exponents of motoring sport felt the urge to accomplish the ‘raid’ to end all ‘raids’ perhaps more than other nations – hence its first serious proposition as an open sporting event, properly organised, came from France. Even the French were conscious of the audacity of their proposal – curt, brisk, and to the point, Le Matin’s challenge was a flourish, full of bravado that was, as it tuned out, amply justified.
The cars were meant to be deliberately kept together so that they could help each other when in difficulties. There were to be no winners or losers, prizes (apart from a bottle of Mumm champagne) or penalties. Inevitably however the event’s international flavour gave it all the attributes of a competition in the public eye, and to the man in the street it remained a race to the end. Neither were there to be any regulations. As Le Matin succinctly put it at the very beginning: ‘All that is required of candidates is that they shall leave Pekin for Paris in a motor-car, and shall arrive at their destination…there will be no formalities or regulations.’
Quite apart from the rosy glamour of the idea, and the patriotic fervour it eventually aroused, the sober aim of the event was to test the reliability and powers of endurance of the motor-car in as bad conditions as had ever been encountered, and over unprecedented distances for a single ‘raid’.
Which cars were involved?
Although twenty five cars entered for the race - on 10 June 1907 only five cars assembled at the French embassy in Peking (now Beijing) for the start of what would become one of the most famous motor rallies in history. The cars ranged from a giant Italian 7 liter, 40 horse power, Itala, specially prepared with a truck chassis and an engine out of a racer, to a tiny 3 wheeler, 6 h.p. Contal tricycle. There was also a 15 h.p. Dutch Spyker and two 10 h.p. De Dion Boutons.
The Itala car was 600 kg heavier than the next in weight which was the Spyker which, in full traveling kit, weighed 1400 kg. The debate was on - Would a light machine cover the ground less quickly on good roads but overcome any difficulty much more easily – or Would a powerful and strongly built car be better to stand the strain of an adventurous journey? The Le Matin called attention to the interesting struggle between the large car and the small one – “the one able to go fast, the other able to go anywhere.”
The cars were modified from standard in several respects, to meet the severe testing expected. Barzini (Prince Borghese’s Journalist traveling companion) tells us that the Itala has a stronger chassis, stouter springs, and bigger and stronger wheels than normal. The car, supplied and modified specially for Borghese by the manufacturers, was a two-seater with a third seat between the two petrol tanks. As the only representative of Italy in the event, Borghese was scrupulous in seeing that almost every piece of his equipment, including the Pirelli tyres, were of Italian manufacturer. The 1907 Pekin to Paris fuelled the first ‘tyre war’ between Michellin and Pirelli – with Pirelli sponsoring Prince Borghese’s Itala and Michellin supporting Goddard, who flogged off some of the tyres to pay for shipping to China, Dunlop came in third supporting the De-Dions.
Space on the cars, without overloading, was one of the most pressing problems. On the Itala, a very low twenty pounds of luggage per head was allowed. The cars carried food provisions such as tinned meat, concentrated soup, tinned milk, vegetables and biscuits as well, together with a stove, tents, camp beds, hammocks, sleeping bags, and a medicine chest. All the crews carried arms, for they had been told that they might encounter bandits. Cormier and Collignon each carried a rifle and a revolver, and, somewhat unnecessarily with all this artillery, a dagger!
Who went – The Characters?
The racers were characters in their own right. The contest settled into a dual between a Prince and a Pauper.
Prince Scipione Borghese driving the big Itala with passenger Monsieur Barzini, correspondent for the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Serra, was the best organised, best-funded, and was the favourite from the outset. He loved the overcoming of obstacles for its own sake and had made long trips into the most inaccessible and remote parts of the world every three or four years, penetrating into the heart of Central Asia. The well-heeled Italian royal was the eventual winner, in the Itala, described as a “giant seven-litre...specially combining a truck chassis with an engine from a racer”. He was so confident of victory that he detoured from Moscow to St. Petersburg to take in a ball attended by “many fine ladies,” then raced 500 miles back to Moscow to continue the event, which he won by a clear week – taking him just 60 days to complete the 12,000-mile trek.
Coming in second was the pauper – a Dutch fairgrounds roustabout named Charles Goddard. Charles Godard, driving the Spyker, didn’t know how to drive a car when he first read of the great race - picking up a newspaper blowing in the breeze, whilst working in Paris as a Circus ground-worker hammering in a tent-peg, he spotted the announcement in Le Matin and vowed he would change his life, find the money somehow, learn to drive, find a manufacturer to lend him a car .and drive to victory. An accomplished con artist Godard promised to pay for the shipping out of his winnings, He talked his passage onto a slow boat to China. Upgrading himself from third-class to first, he hoisted a piano onto the top deck and earned his lst-class ticket by playing the piano to passengers.
Charles Godard managed to wheedle some must needed fuel off Prince Borghese, but knew as he muttered his gratitude that his rival had not spared him enough. He was a fearless individual and in fact Godard set up a new endurance speed record for non-stop driving single-handedly for 24 hours – it was in a desperate bid to make up lost time after a magneto failed. His drive was not equalled until the advent of Le Mans many years later.
Auguste Pons drove the three wheeler Contal – he was accompanied by mechanic Octace Foucault who sat ahead of Pons, the driver, on an unsprung axle, the single wheel being at the back. He was the father of a girl who was to become famous opera singer Lily Pons. He failed to survive the course – the Contal was not as fortunate as the Itala in crossing the Gobi. It bogged down in the sand and was never freed. It is said to still lay buried in the same spot to this day. The crew was found crawling through the sand and near death by local tribesmen. Trying to drive a wicker-basket with three wheels to Paris nearly cost him his life.
Driving one of the De Dion’s was Cormier who was a dealer in these cars. He has a long experience of motor travel in the Balkans, Spain and North Africa and was well recognised for his achievements. Cormier published the event through his diary notes in 1907 in a book called The Race, Pekin to Paris. As far as we are aware there has been no English translation to date. At the request of Tim Scott – Françoise and James McLean translated Cormier’s book in 2007.’
Click on the front cover of Cormier’s ‘The Race, Pekin to Paris', to view the complete translated version.
Victor Collignon was the driver of the other De Dion and had in fact accompanied his friend Cormier on many of his previous journeys. Bizac, a former naval engineer, acted as a mechanic for the De Dion team. He was a man who loved engines, order and discipline and was reputedly indifferent to fatigue.
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The Journey
There were no rules. The first to Paris would be the winner and claim the prize–a magnum of Mumm champagne. There were no rules or officials to enforce them – save one, the sole race official was the starter who flagged off the entrants in Peking and then went home. The racers had a gentleman's agreement to help each other in case of difficulty and to "play fair."
The expedition was threatened to end before it had even started when the Chinise governement underwent what looked like a change of heart. As Barzini states in Pekin to Paris,“Officials in China were most concerned about this planned extraordinary journey proposed by these eccentric Westerners. The journey to Paris could be accomplished by much swifter, safer and surer means. There must, no doubt be hidden and dark reasons for such unaccountable eccentricity. They worried that the plan was to entail the absolute collapse of the Chinese railway company by establishing a means of a regular motor service from Europe to China.”
Half the route had nothing that could be considered roads, so no roads meant no road maps. Drivers navigated by telegraph poles and compasses. Every day, the drivers marked the position of the sun on their arms to ensure they were still heading west. There were no support crews and no garage assistance. This was auto racing in its most raw, primordial form - floorboards were ripped up and experimented with as mud-guards; a wooden wheel was made en-route by a local blacksmith, and rescued the Itala. Luckily punctures were few and far between – the benefit of having no roads meant they saw few horse and carts, so nails from horseshoes were less of a problem.
For the Itala, the day was 10 August; for the other three cars 30 August. The ‘raid’ had taken sixty and eighty days respectively. The drivers never knew exactly how many miles they had covered. The journey was treated as a long series of short stages: only the day’s objective was borne in mind.
So after the noise has died down then the post mortems begin – what had been achieved? The Daily Telegraph placed the drivers in the same gallery as Marco Polo and went on : ‘…they have accomplished an achievement which beggars imagination. In pace, space and picturesqueness combined, no journey has ever equalled it.’
Secondly, the motor-car and the motor industry had proved themselves. This was a young industry, not much more than ten or fifteen years old. Now the greatest test of all had helped to vindicate its products in the eyes of the world. Borghese called ‘Pekin to Paris – the amplest, the completest, the most persuasive testing to which this new instrument had ever been subjected.’ La Vie au Grand Air summed it up: ‘Such a triumph is entirely to the glory of the automobile industry…it is the victory of a very young industry, that is capable of producing other miracles.’
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