Peking to Paris 2007 - Tim Scott Statement

Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, 2007
A personal take on 'the rally '

Hi I’m Tim Scott, aged 57, and have been interested in ‘old’ cars since I was a school boy. Old is a relative term meaning to some when their everyday car gets nearer the 10 year mark, the classic car enthusiast who thinks in terms of 40 years and in my case – old, means Veteran (pre 1905) and Edwardian Cars (pre 1919) (or as the North Americans refer to them - Brass Cars) both Veteran and Edwardian cars being eligible for the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain www.vccofgb.co.uk which means they pre date December 1918.

The love of my life (car wise!) is a 1903 Mercédès 60 h.p. so when I first considered entering the centenary re-enactment of the Pekin to Paris car run there was really only one car I wanted to participate with. Naturally I was aware of a potential Pekin to Paris car rally some four years ago but then it seemed like light years away plus being away from work for approximately six weeks was going to be difficult.

Well they say as you get older you don’t regret the things you have done only the things you have not. So I guess this coupled with my brush with prostate cancer three years ago was sufficient (eventually!) to convince me. By chance a few cars were not going to be ready in time so the organisers Endurance Rally Association offered me an invite www.endurorally.com and in October of last year I became the last entry (No. 19) as well as being the only ‘Veteran’ car.

I have competed in a number of rallies with the Mercédès – many being 1,000 miles over one week. On these occasions I have always undertaken the driving and whilst loving every minute have felt at the end of the week the physical and mental exhaustion. The Pekin to Paris of course is going to be much tougher than any of these previous rallies, with some days of over 400 miles. There was no doubt this would require a team of two people both capable of driving, maintaining and servicing the car. Who better than John Taylor who has looked after the car mechanically since my ownership in 1991. Fortunately John was keen (well at last willing) to join me so the adventure was underway.

The Mercédès was already four years old when the 1907 Pekin to Paris challenge was posted and although did not take part in this extraordinary expedition – it had already written itself into the history books. In 1903 international car racing was not the Grand Prix, this did not start until 1906, but the Gordon Bennett race these were run annually from 1900 to 1905 with perhaps the most notorious being the one held in Ireland in 1903. Events leading up to this race as well as the race itself make this another compelling story. Anyone interested in the development of the early cars, the heroism, of the early pioneer drivers, the romance of the era, the danger – should click onto www.gordonbennettroute.com/
www.pistonheads.com
and www.laoistourism.ie

The Gordon Bennett in Ireland was won by a 60 h.p. Mercédès placing the car in the history books and making the marque famous forever.

Hopefully by now you are intrigued enough to read on and find out more about the Pekin to Paris - well as it is very rare that I ever have a captive audience I will make the most of it and just take a short deviation from the introduction – back to the comment I made a few moments ago about my brush with prostate cancer. Don’t worry not going to get morbid or ask you for any money!

Most people of course either don’t know anything about the prostate or think it is something that only affects old men. Wrong – it affects all of us – our father, brother, partner, uncle, son etc and what is most concerning of all is that many men die from it needlessly. If they had a regular simple blood test (PSA) this could give the vital early warning that is required. Prostate cancer is one of the few cancers that is curable if caught early enough.

Gypsy on a previous run in China 1998

Gypsy in Utah, USA,1996

Gypsy in Budapest, 2006

Gypsy in Budapest, 2006

Through ignorance it kills more than one man every hour in Britain alone.

Anyway I have hijacked the personal page long enough if you are in interested to
read more please go the Prostate page at the top of the menu

Meanwhile as they say back to the story...

The 2007 Pekin to Paris car rally is a re-enactment of an extraordinary motoring epic that took place in 1907 by five intrepid teams that embarked on what surely must have seemed an impossible task to drive. I will not elaborate further about details of the original run as these can be found by looking in History at the top of the page.

I am (hopefully) intending to keep an online diary – how regularly this will be updated will, I suspect, be dictated by the number of problems we encounter! However breakdowns and communication systems permitting it would be great if you were able to follow our trials and tribulations.
You may have been wondering as to my mis-spelling of Pekin. Well of course the capital of China is now known as Beijing – previously Peking but the spelling of Peking in the early 20th century was without the ‘g’ therefore original literature of the 1907 event is referred to as Pekin.

As already mentioned I have completed a number of 1,000 mile rallies with the 1903 Mercédès, not all without difficulties, but I have always managed to finish. As Gypsy (family name for the Mercédès) is well proven I did not want to ‘interfere’ with her mechanically but felt it wise to replace items like the springs, radiator, petrol tank, luggage box in order to preserve the originals as well as increase capacity. Hopefully these changes, untested in rallying terms, will not prove to be our downfall. I am sure Gypsy will be fine (fingers crossed!).

Tyres and Wheels

I wrestled with the thought of changing the size and type of tyres from the beaded edge - the type of tyre Veteran and Edwardian cars run on (narrow skinny tyres with high pressure – 70 plus psi) to either parallel sided tyres or even larger beaded edge. Following the early years of my ownership I had experienced a number of tyre problems sometimes having a number of punctures on each rally! However since fitting a new set of wooden wheels made from Hickory (the strongest timber available) and standardizing on Dunlop beaded edge tyres - I seem to have overcome the problems (touch wood!). If Gypsy was going to embark upon such a challenge – I wanted her to do it in the same spirit as she would have in 1907 and as I didn’t want to start a trial and error saga, with different tyres and wheels, I decided to stay with the proven.

The negative to sticking with the original type of tyres is the potential problem we may encounter with the overall weight. These tyres have a limited load carrying capacity which means we are going to have to be vigilent with packing. However as each participant has to carry their own spares, tyres, fuel, water, luggage, tents, sleeping bags, medical kits and dried food provisions - as the date draws nearer my anguish grows! I keep asking myself should I have changed the wheels and changed to different tyres – too late now I guess time will tell.

Click here for a list of spares and luggage being carried by Gypsy