Driving From New York To Paris

On February 12, 1908, more than 150,000 people crowded in and around Times Square, and along both sides of Broadway all the way up to 200th Street, hoping to catch a glimpse of the six automobiles that would soon be heading west in a 22,000-mile race ... driving from New York to Paris.

The race was, at its heart, a newspaper stunt. Inspired by a Peking-to-Paris race the year before, the New York Times and Le Martin of Paris conceived and sponsored the around-the-world race as a way to boost circulation.

A total of eighteen men – drivers, mechanics and journalists – crowded into six overloaded cars, representing the US, Italy, France, and Germany. At that time, only nine men had successfully crossed the United States in an automobile – but no one had done in during winter. And huge sections of the route beyond the US, such as through Siberia, had never been traveled by automobile.

Dermot Cole wrote about the race in Hard Driving (1991):

There were no major long-distance roads in America then, only dirt tracks that connected one place to another in a jumbled pattern that owed much to chance and tradition.

Another book about the race – Julie Fenster's Race of the Century – was published in 2005.

The first car to make it to San Francisco did so in 41 days (pre-race estimates had been 22 days). The original route was through Alaska via frozen rivers and dogsled trails to the Bering Strait, but that proved impossible, so the cars headed back to San Francisco. They boarded a steam ship to Japan and then on to Siberia, where they were just in time to navigate huge swamps of mud, thanks to the spring thaw.

Only three of the six cars completed the race. The winner arrived in Paris on July 30 – 169 days after leaving Manhattan. (Another team had actually arrived four days earlier, but they were penalized 30 days for various infractions, including shipping the car by train at one point!) The third car arrived in September.

I was incredulous when I first heard about this race. Driving west from New York to Paris? In 1908? It's pure insanity! I have Cole's book, but have not read Finster's, though it seems to be better known. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that every story surrounding the race seems too good to be true.

There was a time when doing crazy shit like this completely captivated the country, because it was so far beyond the imagination of just about everyone. It's next to impossible to achieve now.