London To Peking Motor Challenge
Encyclopedia
The London to Peking Motor Challenge was a one-time car rally organized by the Jules Verne
Society in the Spring of 1990.
As the name implied, the rally consisted of a drive from London
, UK
to Peking
, China
. Peking is now officially known as Beijing, but the old name was used, as the rally traced the course driven by the Italians
Prince Scipione Borghese, mechanic Ettore Guizzardi and journalist
Luigi Barzini in the Peking to Paris
race in 1907 (before the name change). The 1990 rally ran in the opposite direction as the 1907 course, heading west-to-east.
Le Matin
issued a challenge for anyone to drive from Peking to Paris by motor-car. Five teams; four French
, and one Italian
took up the challenge. Thus began the first, and most famous international car rally in early motoring history.
Barzini had written a popular book about his adventure, being the first to arrive in Paris, but a decade later, the Soviet Union
closed off the route used by Barzini. With the glasnost
and perestroika
of the final days of the Soviet Union, the time seemed right for a new journey.
Starting at Marble Arch
in London, the drivers were given a sendoff by Luigi Barzini's grandson. The drivers headed across the Channel on the P&O Ferry to Paris. From there, the drivers could take any course they chose across Europe
before reuniting in Istanbul, Turkey. Afterward, the route ran across Turkey to the border with the Soviet Union in present day Georgia
, becoming the first time in Soviet history that western civilian
s were permitted to drive their own vehicles into the country. A ferry
across the Caspian Sea
took the drivers to present day Turkmenistan
, Uzbekistan
, and Kyrgyzstan
, before entering China
, crossing the Gobi Desert
and arriving in Beijing
on June 4, 1990, coincidentally the one-year anniversary of the crackdown on demonstrators in
Tian'anmen Square.
The 1907 event was not intended to be a race
or competition, but quickly became one due to the pioneering nature of it and the technical superiority of the Italians' car
, a 40-HP
Itala. The 1990 event was a goodwill tour, and no drivers were in competition.
Among the entrants in 1990, were vintage and antique vehicles, several motorcycles with and without sidecar
s, and modern four wheel drive
vehicles, and amazingly all but one of the over 20 teams completed the journey. A 60-minute highlights broadcast was hosted and narrated by actor Cliff Robertson
and shown on ESPN
in the United States
.
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
Society in the Spring of 1990.
As the name implied, the rally consisted of a drive from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
to Peking
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Peking is now officially known as Beijing, but the old name was used, as the rally traced the course driven by the Italians
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Prince Scipione Borghese, mechanic Ettore Guizzardi and journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
Luigi Barzini in the Peking to Paris
Peking to Paris
The Peking to Paris motor race was a race held in 1907 for automobiles between Peking , China and Paris, France, a distance of 9,317 miles or 14,994 km....
race in 1907 (before the name change). The 1990 rally ran in the opposite direction as the 1907 course, heading west-to-east.
Origins
In March 1907, the Parisian newspaperNewspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
Le Matin
Le Matin (France)
Le Matin was a French daily newspaper created in 1883 and discontinued in 1944.Le Matin was launched on the initiative of Chamberlain & Co, a group of American financiers, in 1883, on the model of the British daily The Morning News. The direction of the project was entrusted to the French...
issued a challenge for anyone to drive from Peking to Paris by motor-car. Five teams; four French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and one Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
took up the challenge. Thus began the first, and most famous international car rally in early motoring history.
Barzini had written a popular book about his adventure, being the first to arrive in Paris, but a decade later, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
closed off the route used by Barzini. With the glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
and perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
of the final days of the Soviet Union, the time seemed right for a new journey.
1990
The 1990 course went from west-to-east along a different course than Barzini and his team took in 1907.Starting at Marble Arch
Marble Arch
Marble Arch is a white Carrara marble monument that now stands on a large traffic island at the junction of Oxford Street, Park Lane, and Edgware Road, almost directly opposite Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park in London, England...
in London, the drivers were given a sendoff by Luigi Barzini's grandson. The drivers headed across the Channel on the P&O Ferry to Paris. From there, the drivers could take any course they chose across Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
before reuniting in Istanbul, Turkey. Afterward, the route ran across Turkey to the border with the Soviet Union in present day Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, becoming the first time in Soviet history that western civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
s were permitted to drive their own vehicles into the country. A ferry
Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
across the Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
took the drivers to present day Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...
, Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
, and Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
, before entering China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, crossing the Gobi Desert
Gobi Desert
The Gobi is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the...
and arriving in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
on June 4, 1990, coincidentally the one-year anniversary of the crackdown on demonstrators in
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
Tian'anmen Square.
The 1907 event was not intended to be a race
Auto racing
Auto racing is a motorsport involving the racing of cars for competition. It is one of the world's most watched televised sports.-The beginning of racing:...
or competition, but quickly became one due to the pioneering nature of it and the technical superiority of the Italians' car
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
, a 40-HP
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...
Itala. The 1990 event was a goodwill tour, and no drivers were in competition.
Among the entrants in 1990, were vintage and antique vehicles, several motorcycles with and without sidecar
Sidecar
A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle, producing a three-wheeled vehicle.-History:A sidecar appeared in a cartoon by George Moore in the January 7, 1903, issue of the British newspaper Motor Cycling. Three weeks later, a provisional patent was...
s, and modern four wheel drive
Four Wheel Drive
The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, more often known as Four Wheel Drive or just FWD, was founded in 1909 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, as the Badger Four-Wheel Drive Auto Company by Otto Zachow and William Besserdich.-History:...
vehicles, and amazingly all but one of the over 20 teams completed the journey. A 60-minute highlights broadcast was hosted and narrated by actor Cliff Robertson
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...
and shown on ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Legacy
- In 1908 another transcontinental race was held, running from Times SquareTimes SquareTimes Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
in New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
west to Paris.
- With the opening of the borders in both the former Soviet Union and China, transcontinental rallies are feasible once again, though rarely attempted due to the costs and time involved. One such event has been run, a 1997 motor rally that roughly duplicated the 1908 course. (Website offline, archived at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
)
- The Great Race, an American club rally competition for antique automobiles planned a world wide race for 1992 but later shelved the idea.
- The American reality televisionReality televisionReality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
series The Amazing RaceThe Amazing RaceThe Amazing Race is a reality television game show in which teams of two people, who have some form of a preexisting personal relationship, race around the world in competition with other teams...
documentsTelevision documentaryDocumentary television is a genre of television programming that broadcasts documentaries.* Documentary television series, a television series which is made up of documentary episodes....
teams attempting to circumnavigate the entire globe, using various means of travel including automobiles.
- LTV Corporation, manufacturers of the US military Humvee used the 1990 London to Peking Motor Challenge to test out two matching prototypePrototypeA prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
s of a civilian version of the vehicle. Passing the test with ease, and stopping along the way to perform stunts for local villagers, the vehicles would later enter production (after even greater media exposure in Operation Desert Storm) as the Hummer H1Hummer H1The Hummer H1 is a civilian off-road vehicle based on the M998 Humvee, which was created by AM General. The vehicle was produced from 1992 through 2006, and was the first of what became the Hummer line...
.
- The Mongol RallyMongol RallyThe Mongol Rally is a car rally that begins in Europe and ends in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. The principal launch is from Goodwood Circuit, United Kingdom, with subsidiary starting points in other European countries. It is described as the "greatest adventure in the world"...
started in 2004 and now 200 cars race to Mongolia each year. The cars cannot get all the way to Beijing due to car import tax restrictions, but many participants carry to China from Ulaan Baator on the Trans-Mongolian Express.
External links
- Neil Collins, the sole AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n driver in the LTPMC describes his journey behind the wheel of a 1912 Rolls-RoyceRolls-Royce LimitedRolls-Royce Limited was a renowned British car and, from 1914 on, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904....
Silver GhostRolls-Royce Silver GhostThe Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost refers both to a car model and to one specific car from that series.Originally named the "40/50 h.p." the chassis was originally produced at Royce's Manchester works, before moving to Derby in July 1908 and also, between 1921 and 1926, in Springfield, Massachusetts....
. - Details of Barzini's 1907 journey
- Details of the car used by the 1907 winners