Peking to Paris: 1907’s 8,000-Mile Race That CHANGED The World

In 1907, one Paris newspaper challenged drivers and automakers to a seemingly impossible challenge: Be the first car to race from Peking, China to Paris, France. Five different teams took on the 8,000-mile adventure across brutal terrain, including the Gobi Desert and the Ural Mountains. This week on DPTJ, we’re delving into the scandals, lies, cheats, and near-death experiences that comprised this race — and we’re also talking to Kassia St. Clair, author of “The Race to the Future: 8,000 Miles to Paris – The Adventure That Accelerated the Twentieth Century,” a new book that demolishes the Peking-to-Paris myths of the past!

To find out more about Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys:
https://linktr.ee/deadlypassionsterriblejoys

Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/deadlypassionsterriblejoys

Please give DPTJ’s new sponsor, Homefield Apparel, a warm welcome by subscribing for updates and checking out all FOUR new motorsport-themed clothing launches this year. Don’t forget to use code DPTJ15 for 15% off your first order!
https://www.homefieldapparel.com/

Follow Elizabeth Blackstock on Instagram: @elizablackstock
Follow Elizabeth Blackstock on Twitter/X: @eliz_blackstock
Follow DPTJ on Instagram: @deadlypassionsterriblejoys
Follow DPTJ on Twitter/X: @terriblejoy_pod

Order Racing with Rich Energy: https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/racing-with-rich-energy/
Follow Grand Prix Gastronomy: https://grandprixgastronomy.substack.com/
Grab some merch on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/eablackstock/shop?asc=u

Episode Bibliography:
The Race to the Future: 8,000 Miles to Paris – The Adventure That Accelerated the Twentieth Century by Kassia St. Clair

if you were to travel somewhere in 1907 and you weren’t extremely rich your plans would probably be a little bit tedious you’d Mount your horses to a carriage though of course having horses also probably meant you needed someone to take care of them and food to give them which was expensive and meant you probably had money so maybe instead you’d hop on a bicycle or you’d walk where you needed to go when it came to longdistance travel you could count on Railways to bring you from one place to the next but you’d still have to arrange some sort of travel once you arrived at your destination maybe if you lived in a big city you could count on a bus or a tram more than anything though you probably wouldn’t have owned or driven a car Motorcars were expensive back in 1907 and they could be difficult to start control and maintain if you could afford investing in an automobile you were probably wealthy enough to also hire a chauffeur and some mechanics to maintain your Machinery in 1907 just over 140,000 cars were registered in the United States of America a country that boasted 87 million inhabitants over in Europe in 1907 France there were a mere 30,000 cars on the road among 40 million inhabitants so to put that pretty simply cars weren’t a big thing and not many folks were driving them but that all changed when in 1907 one Parisian newspaper decided to Stage an 8,000 mile race from Beijing China to France It Was a Race that would change the world this week’s episode of deadly passions terrible Joys is a special one yes we will be talking about the chaos of the 1907 peaking to Paris race but we’ll also be chatting to the author of a brand new book about that exact topic cassia stclair has spent the last few years working on unveiling the true story behind the much mythologized peaking to Paris race and her new book The Race To The Future 8,000 Mi to Paris the adventure that accelerated the 20th century first I’m going to get you up to speed about everything you need to know about this exceptional adventure and then we’ll speak to St Clair about the Intensive writing and research process that went into developing such an amazing retelling of a race that involved everything from Italian royalty to a massive cheating scandal to plenty of near-death experiences and so much more let’s Dive Right In Motorsport isn’t just about fast cars and Daredevil drivers it’s a place where scandals burn hotter than exhaust pipes this is a History Podcast dedicated to delving into the darkest corners of the racing world to uncover Secrets deception and Intrigue my name is Elizabeth Blackstock and welcome to deadly passions terrible Joys I hope all my Indie Car fans out there are ready to scoop up some of the best merch of their lives because dpj sponsor HomeField apparel has not only launched some amazing IND 500 merch but it’s also preparing to drop a gorgeous Arrow McLaren collection you do not want to miss out on this so make sure you head to the link in my bio to sign up for McLaren drop updates and if you’re really interested in getting some indie 500 merch don’t forget to pick that up as well for all my first-time buyers out there use code DPT j15 for 15% off your first [Applause] [Music] purchase European Motorsport at the turn of the 20th century focused heavily on city- to City distance races this this was an era before organized RAC tracks really came into Focus so contemporary automakers found the best and easiest way to show off their skills was attempting to cross a specified distance faster than anyone else the first car race in the world was the Paris to Rune in 1894 which was followed by races from Paris to Barcelona Marsailles Amsterdam Berlin Vienna and Madrid as automotive technology improved both automakers and competitive drivers grew hungry to show off their skills in longer more arduous and More Adventurous events these early Automotive exploits also made for great press newspapers around the world breathlessly reported on these long-distance races and the public clamored to watch history on furl on black and white pages hot off the press it was great entertainment and it was also really great for the newspaper business it should come as no surprise that the idea of the peaking to Paris race was derived from a newspaper in the January 31st 1907 edition of paris’s Lon came The Germ that inspired the idea what needs to be proved today is that as long as a man has a car he can do anything and go anywhere is there anyone who will undertake to travel this summer from Paris to Ping by automobile the idea for the long-distance race was partially rooted in good business but it was also a deeply nationalistic Affair France was the mother of the automobile the editors reckoned and therefore her technology should be allowed the broadest possible event in which to display her Talent no ply distance races no laps around closed tracks why not instead race from the capital of the East peing now known as Beijing and the West Paris France The Proposal itself was so alluring that by the end of the day several drivers and automakers had already telegrammed the paper to share their interest by February 15th less Le than 2 weeks later over 18 cars had promised to take part and soon as many as 40 different competitors eventually promised their involvement however when participants were asked to place a deposit and be prepared to ship off to China by the 14th of April the field dwindled so much so that the race organizers actually canell the event still on June 10th 1907 five cars lined up to take the start with a total of 11 men geared up those five cars came from three different nations Italy France and the Netherlands allow me to briefly introduce you to those Crews and without spoiling too much give you a little sense of how they fared in their 8,000 M Journey heading into the peaking Paris race there were two distinct trains of thought about what would constitute a capable and successful car in this race on one hand a lot of folks believed that a lighter and less powerful car would actually serve best sure it would be slower on paved roads but the thought at the time was that it would be much easier to lift it out of obstacles due to its weight and anyway you weren’t hitting paved roads until the final about thousand miles of the journey anyway on the other hand was the argument that more power was always a good thing no matter what so let me introduce you to our competitors from the least to the most powerful first we had a wild machine named the kontal motor TR an elaborate six 6 horsepower three- wheeled machine that seemed to be more of an motorcycle than an automobile it also featured one of the most perplexing layouts for driver August Pon and his Navigator octav Fuko the driver actually perched at the back of the three- wheeled machine using long handlebars to navigate in front of the driver and in between those handlebars sat your passenger Cal driver August Pon hoped to use the peaking Paris as a way to launch himself into stardo and away from the obligations of family life he was steadfast in speaking to the Press before the event but on the starting line it became very clear that he and Navigator Fuko would have a very long uphill battle ahead of them the small size of the K meant that they’d had to sacrifice luggage and emergency supplies that the other teams could easily accommodate I’ll let you take a guess at how far they made it into their drive but I will say their peaking pairs was much shorter than the proposed 8,000 miles One Step Up in power were two French Deon bhon both boasting 10 horsepower the first was driven by George Cormier who would send telegrams back to Lotto magazine detailing their Journey alongside him was Jean bizak his mechanic the second day dehon was driven by Victor Cino with il Seco journalist Eduardo longoni serving as his number two Jean bizak who was to serve as a mechanic had spent years working on cars but had never actually sat in one until he left the starting line of the peaking Paris race which should tell you just how socially stratified automobile ownership in use was back in 1907 driver and journalist Jorge Cormier would join him and he’s described by cassia stclair as being the most intimidated of the bunch he had founded an automobile dealership in Paris and had also undertaken several solo Journeys around Europe but Cormier had never driven on such rough terrain before upon arriving in peing by train not by the ships because he was scared of ships he became something of an organizer for both of the de diam Bhutan teams he found supplies and sent folks out from the second de Dion Bhutan on a reconnaissance trip just to get a sense of what the road ahead would be like in the second dehon was Victor Kino a cheerful upbeat Sportsman and a former Olympian who had picked up motor racing and then later mechanics he was the kind of man who preferred to take orders rather than give them so he struck up a really close kinship with a far more organized George Cormier also in that second car would be Eduardo lagoni an unassuming writer who only made it part of the way before he was replaced on the peak King to Paris the deutan teams agreed to work together feeling more confident about tackling obstacles as a group next up on our power scale was the 15 horsepower Dutch Spiker a vehicle that was staffed with some real characters very little was known about driver sha gdar Before the Race but the peaking Paris highlighted his reputation as a serial con man Gard claimed that Spiker as a firm had loaned him a vehicle for the race and had also promised to pay all of his expenses he liked to drop that fact when say negotiating payment and Spiker as he so earnestly promised would repay all of those debts for all of the equipment he gathered before leaving as it turns out Spiker had no idea about these promises and the equipment that Gard purchased before he left he actually turned around and immediately sold to gain passage on the ship heading to peeking joining him at the start of the trip would be Jean dle a journalist for L Matan who had earned his career by writing editing and Publishing detailed books about France’s many colonies it’s thanks to D that we have so much compelling detail about the 1907 race but when the Spiker beell trouble partway through the event dle headed to Deon bhan and replaced Eduardo Loni the Spiker would reappear thanks largely to some Tom Foolery by Shaw Gard for the final part of the race at which point Gard was joined by Spiker mechanic Bruno Steven finally at the very top of the power food chain was the obviously Italian team driving a very obviously Italian car and itala this elegant machine could produce anywhere between 35 and 45 horsepower and it was also packed with three men for the duration of the trip the atala’s so-called primary driver was Prince Luigi Mar Antonio Franchesco Rolo cipion boresi who hailed from one of Italy’s most illustrous royal families the boresi fortune had dwindled by 1907 but the prince launched the family name back into the pages of the history books with his adventurous nature when it came time to choose a mechanic and relief driver for the peaking Paris Prince boresi chose a man named Ator gardi gardi had actually been hired by a mechanic by the boresi family back when the prince was just 15 years old when it was time to select a teammate for the 8,000m drive in the itala borgesi selected the comfort and loyalty he knew he could expect from gardi the third man in their Caravan was journalist Luigi barzini who would regularly send dispatches back to Italian magazine corera deera and the Daily Telegraph even though several teams had done some preliminary Recon there was no way any of the peaking Paris competitors knew what faced them soon after their departure from the walled city of peeking the men would reach the GOI desert then the rained out muddy roads of Siberia and the Earl mountain ranges for most of the journey they would be carving their own roads out of uninhabited Countryside often passing through small towns populated by people who had never even heard of a Motorcar the odds against them seemed insurmountable but the men there didn’t get involved in the peaking Paris because it was easy they did it to make [Applause] [Music] history here we go perfect uh thank you so much for taking the time I’m so excited to talk about your book um I like just dove into the uh peing De Paris race a couple months ago and was like this is so just so much um yeah that’s how I felt when I first came across it I was like this is this is everything it’s got everything it does I was looking at old photos and I was like I can’t believe human beings did this to themselves I know uh but would you mind by kind of introducing yourself to my audience sharing a little bit about who you are um and what your career path has been like sure uh so my name is Cassie Sinclair and I’m a writer and probably the accent gives it away but I’m British and I live in London um this is my third book and it’s called the race to the Future and it’s about an incredible journey an incredible race that took place in 97 um in the early days of the automobile from peing now Beijing Overland to Paris so about 8,000 Miles um westwards across two continents um my two previous books were on quite different subjects the first one was called The Secret Lives of color and it told the stories of 75 different pigments Hues um dyes um that kind of thing and then the second one was called the golden thread and that’s about the history of different textiles from the very first fibers that we know human beings ever touched right up to the um synthetic uh fibers that they are looking to um create in order for people to you know survive on the way to Mars um in spaceships um and so that was really good fun I got to look at um how Vikings made sales out of world and and and stuff like that um before I became uh a full-time um author I used to work at magazines I worked at um a magazine that now no longer exists um called um intelligent life and then I also worked at The Economist in the books and arts department and before that um I worked at House and Garden um and the world of Interiors to kind of British um magazines looking at you know culture and and um and and style that kind of thing I was going to say I’m such a big fan of The Secret Lives of color um when your agent reached out I was like oh my God I have one of her books on my shelf and I love this one um I did a bunch of like when I was trying to decide what colors to paint my house uh I had that out of like I want to know why I want to like paint this um I’m always both I’m it’s never happened but I’m like both excited and scared in case I ever see someone on the underground or tube in London or like on a train or just out and about with one of my books because it’d be really exciting to see someone with a book you know like not a friend or a family member but I’m also really worried that I’d just be a total creep and I wouldn’t be able to just like wander up and would be like hi that’s me I wrote that one they’d be like great thanks leave me alone so your previous work has been so different than this upcoming book on the peaking to Paris race what inspired you to go kind of look into this crazy Automotive adventure and focus on that instead sure so um I guess there is a sort of real difference you know I think you can kind of see that colors and textiles are you know sort of they’re not similar subjects but they they’ve sort of got enough commonality and you can kind of imagine the people who are really interested in color you know might also be the kinds of people who are interested in in textiles um and you know if you’re looking at it from that angle then a book about a car Journey looks really different but I guess for me there’s more similarity than difference firstly they’re all they’re all history books and secondly they’re all about they all three are about topics and I think this is this for anything that I write you know books and articles that you know the things that tend to really you know excite me and and get me passionate and and you know a thing a subjects that I can really dig my teeth into are often things where um the subject is something that is really kind of ordinary and everyday so much so that we have kind of forgotten how fundamental it is we’ve just stopped seeing it and I quite like reexamining those really ordinary things and um finding you know the history to them and I also feel like looking at something that’s very ordinary and overlooked can kind of give you a different perspective on on on your everyday experience so for me that is true of color that is true of textiles and that’s also true of the car you know I I’m a Londoner I’ve lived in London all my life and I feel like even though I’m not a massive pet head I live in a space that the car has kind of you know inhabited for a relatively short period of time the car is not that old as technology but it has made the city its own and you know we think about space and distance and time in in ways which are dependent on the existence of the car our roads are built to accommodate cars you know the surfaces of them you know it’s it’s a surface that suits um vehicle wield Vehicles rather than you know horses and carts and things like that and so I was just fascinated by the fact that we you know I no longer really question that when I think about going to see my sister she lives a couple of hours away by car um but you know that my conception of how of how to get to her and where she is in relation to me that is just defined by the existence of the car and I found that really fascinating that that’s just so much part of our mental space um despite the fact this technology is relatively young I think it’s so fascinating that you bring this point up because that’s part of what I tried to do with my podcast is like I think a lot of people take the modern motorsport for granted um but there’s always a reason why we ended up somewhere there’s a reason why we use the colors that we use for certain things to convey certain emotions there’s a reason why the entire universe especially in the United States is built to accommodate the car um what is like the short concise synopsis of the 1907 peing to Paris race that kind of got you hooked and that will get future readers interested oh so in 1907 the automobile as an idea is still relatively new it’s kind of like early early adolescence you know people often date the very first automobile to kind of the late 1880s um with with car Benz although like almost all Technologies the beginnings are kind of contested um so in 1907 the car is still quite young and it’s very much um seen as kind of something just for the wealthy um and that’s that’s globally I think a few years previously um the the president the American president at the time had basically said you know cars are responsible or could be responsible for for um socialistic feeling in America because ordinary people will look at at drivers and feel so enraged by such a conspicuous display of wealth that they will just want to attack and there were loads of instances of people you know attacking drivers so this is the context and then in 1907 a Parisian newspaper L Martin has the idea of testing this relatively young technology and throwing down a gaunet you know the most incredible challenge that has has yet um been um proposed for this technology and that is a Race Across two continents 8,000 miles from what is seen as the capital of um the East you know now Beijing then peing to the capital of the West Paris um at the time and so they proposed this journey lots of people sign up and only five cars make it to the start line and off they go and there are you know no roads for most of the the journey um because you know roads were seen as quite an old-fashioned technology which sounds odd to us now but for the past Century countries have been busily investing in Railways and so you know roads were associated with horses and cards yeah and that was you know so they hadn’t invested you know money in making good the surfaces so you don’t have good roads in in China or Mongolia or for most of of Russia and so there’s also no petrol stations so fuel has to be um taken out by camel and by mule or dropped at Railway stations you know it’s it’s a real logistical challenge it’s a real geographical um Challenge and and yet five cars set off and um you know on the way there are incredible adventures and mishaps um and you know there’s there’s there’s so much within the story of of the race but just the idea of the race captures people’s imaginations um and it’s followed closely by you know um a lot of the newspaper reading reading public globally um because um the journalists who are embedded with the drivers are sending back daily or sometimes twice daily news reports that are being sent to newspapers worldwide that’s amazing and how like obviously this captured imaginations at the time but it also must have captured yours because you set off to write a book about it what was kind of the inspiration that you had to transform this wild thing you’ve learned about into a full Deep dive sure so I think the story of the race itself is just really fascinating and deserved another look you know there were a few books written about it at the time by by um journalists by the journalists who were involved and all all the competitors who were involved so you get kind of like a little rash of of books um about the race in in 1907 and 1908 and then there’s another flare of interest in the kind of 1950s and 1960s um when there’s kind of this big Nostalgia for the early days of Motoring and then there hasn’t been there have been a few books written since but there there hasn’t been much reinvestigation into the original race since then and so I thought that it was likely that i’ be able to find new sources um you know given we’re now in an internet age and um we’ve got more possibility of travel and so forth so um I was really excited to re-examine it and I I very quickly found in my initial um research that there were sources that hadn’t been found before which really exciting and I was like I think I can get a new angle on this but also going back to the point about what draws me to to write um a book about a subject I also felt that we’re in a really interesting time now where most people have grown up assuming the car will last forever and yet we feel very differently about the car than maybe you know our parents generation or the generation before that it no longer feels inevitable I think people are more worried about the consequences there’s more we’re much more aware of the environmental harms we’re thinking actually even for people who really love driving are getting very Fed Up of the way that driving the way that we have to drive now things like you know endless traffic um log jams that kind of thing it’s you know when you think back to those early days when you read the accounts of those early days when people were sort of really enthusiastic about driving and and really championing the idea of the car even those who wanted the car for everyone they wanted people to be able to access you know speed and also you know the open Highway and the open road and you know as someone who lives in a city and which is often gridlocked that’s not something that we have access to now so I feel like we’re in a period of kind of re-examination and thinking about where the car might go next is it going to be a different fuel source um is ownership going to look slightly different um I think there there are lots of different ways in which the car’s future might play out and we’re beginning to look at those now and so it felt like a really great time um to write a book that examined the car’s Origins and the origins the the W the wise of how it’s turned out now at a time when we’re again kind of thinking about where the future might take us how has your own perspective changed since you’ve done all this research kind of learned those initial aspects of the automobile um how have you like in the modern sense has that changed you any I mean I’m someone who although I’m not a petrol head I’m someone who’s always I you know I was one of those people who um got my driving my um original driving license like the absolutely the first day that I could I saw the car as freedom but I’m also someone who lives um in the in the middle of a city and I um Midway through writing this book I fell pregnant and and then I’ve now got um a daughter who’s approaching two two years old and something weird happened during pregnancy where my sense of smell got really overdeveloped I’m not too sure how common this is but I really started like the the smell of petrol fumes really started to bother me um and I’ve always cycled around London as well as having a car and it’s the smell of fumes has never bothered me I’ve grown up here but now it really bothers me it hasn’t really that that sense hasn’t receded and so I think I’m a lot more aware of the um of the harms that mass automobile usage can have on people who are you know living in cities you know the the the the health implications um and and the smog and the and the ution bother me in a way that they never really bothered me before but I feel very conflicted because my love of the car and my Reliance on the car and my feeling of my love of driving hasn’t that hasn’t altered and as you as you’ve researched this book where did that process take you I mean mentally and physically if you’ve had to travel any H so so I was writing this I you know I got the the book deal in in um 2019 and then the idea was always that I was going to to do the route myself and my husband and I bought um an old Toyota Land Cruiser and we took delivery in January 2020 and then of course the world shut down um and then it kind of shut down again in 2021 and by the end of 2021 I was I was I was pregnant um and I was like oh maybe I can still do still do the journey and then the following year you know war broke out um you and Russia invaded Ukraine and and almost you know a lot of the of the of the original route passes through Russia um I’m still learning Russian um in the hopes that one day I’ll be able to do the journey this time with daughter and and in to probably um but it wasn’t in the end possible for me to do the journey which is is really gutting um but uh but yes that that’s that is the you know that’s the the case on on the Travel front in terms of where it took me kind of emotionally and internally it was very odd writing a book about you know that at its heart is about the joy and the possibility and the um the Huts sper of traveling such a long distance in such a new and untried Technology during a period where I’ve never traveled so little in those two years when I was doing the bulk of the writing just because of covid you know I’ve we we were you know chained to our houses um and we had periods of time where we were only allowed to leave for 1 hour a day as I’m sure um you’ve had uh you know and and so it was very odd writing following this journey and I’ve got a map up behind me as you can see that I’ve also had in in um when I was writing the the peaking to Paris book um you know the maap this huge expanse this huge geographical expanse um and yet I was more geographically confined um than ever before during the writing that was a that was a very odd um that was a very odd experience MH I think one of my favorite things about working with kind of older research and historical materials is being able to take them and transform them into a story um but you’re working on such a much like a larger scope than I think I’ve ever done with any of my podcasts and even with the book that I wrote previously just because it was so recent uh how did you organize and make sense of all of that information I’m sure you had collected I know you’ve got your map but I’m sure like the notes and whatnot had their own system oh God was there a system so I was I was really intimidated by this project at the beginning because you know it involves a huge amount of primary research so first off you’ve got all the Contemporary newspaper and magazine articles that were being written during the race and they are some of them are in English some of them are in Italian a lot of them are in French my French Italian are okay but not at a level where I’d be really confident particularly when you know it’s using a lot of Motoring terms and it’s that kind of very early 20th century you know my I very quickly realized that while I can kind of get by in Italian or French now reading newspaper articles from 1907 about a car Journey like the words they use you just don’t it’s very hard so I had I I knew I had all that and I was going to have to use translators you’ve also got the books that were written at the time and they um are subtly different from the articles in in in on on kind of fine points of detail and I needed that point of detail because because of the social conventions at the time Lots was left unsaid um and so working out what has been called um you know things that were written in the Heat of the Moment then later during the editing process when they were you know were Cala they’ take things out and that was very revealing about how they felt and how they wanted to manage the The Narrative so you know there was that so newspaper and magazines um written by the um the participants and the books you also have the newspaper articles written about the race at the time and then you also have all the kind of supplementary information because the way that the book is structured is you have alternating chapters you have a chapter about the race followed by a kind of contextual chapter so something like you know um fuel development um and the kinds of different types of fuel that were being used at the time and and why we kind of ended up with the the way that we think about um petrol or gas now um then you might have kind of a chapter on horses and how cities operated when they were dependent on horsepower rather than automotive power or you know women in the car so you then have you know all the kind of um both primary and secondary information on these contextual chapters um it was a lot I really got myself into I mean it was it I fairly quickly organized a system but when you’re dealing with that volume and having to switch back and forth oh my goodness um you get you can get yourself into into a little bit of a model uh quite easily but you know the system that I ended up working with um worked in the end and by you know by the end of it I was really familiar I have like six you know um I’m not sure if you all them the same thing in in um in American English I had like six um ringbinder folders I’m not too sure lever folders uh of um of information full six full lever AR folders and I I basically kind of knew exactly what was where in each of them and I could you know pull it out if I needed it um so so yeah you you manage your your brain expands when needed to did you have any kind of aha moments or like breakthroughs while you were working on this like a piece that was missing that you finally got back together or something of that nature um absolutely so very early on I there were two things that I don’t think previous authors had done which which really surprised me so I think firstly was the map and plotting you know you can see behind me on the map I plotted out the roote using different bits of like colored string for each car because they took slightly different Roots um and secondly that was really helpful but what I also needed to know is is how long it was taking them to travel between these points and plotting that out um was really really really helpful it showed me where the cars were going faster and slower and where they were sort of having real difficulties you can get a sense of that from The Narrative but when you can see that you know on some days they’re traveling you know 120 miles and then on Sunday they they’re barely managing five or six um you’re really getting you know the sense of the frustration and it adds quite a lot but also it illuminated the fact that one of the cars has this um in puts on this incredible burst of speed about 2third of the way through the race and in the more recent um uh accounts of of the of the the peing to Paris they’re seen as the hero the kind of unsung hero because they managed these incredible endurance drives of kind of hundreds of miles you know with barely only sleep over a couple of days and plotting those out was very revealing um because it it it showed me the the scope of what they were claiming to have have done and it also gave me real doubts as to whether that would have actually been possible yeah um and it meant that because I was starting to have doubts just because logistically it was very difficult and also the route that they chosen was very was I could see it was suspicious it meant I went looking for evidence that maybe they hadn’t achieved what they said they had um and eventually I managed to find you know evidence that you know I’m I’m very um happy with and and I’m very convinced kind of shows that they they didn’t accomplish quite what they they said they did that’s always exciting I love being able to kind of find the uh the bits where it’s like oh no that definitely did not happen the way you said it didn’t I finally know why I love that so much were there any particular anecdotes that have stuck with you you since then whether they’re profound or funny what have you yeah so so the the leading car had an absolutely Dreadful day they um had been authorized because the roads were in such Bor condition this is fairly early on they’ve just left Lake bcal they’re they’re a little bit ahead but not much ahead of of the other vehicles and they just have an awful day they um are forced off the railway um Bridges back onto the regular Road and then very quickly after they fall through a bridge and the car flips over they all end up in the river and one of them is is is seriously injured he takes a really bad blow to his his his back and and spine um they managed to to get the car out and it’s still running um and they you know get back on the road and and this time they decide they are going to stick to the railway tracks so then they’re bumping along the railway tracks you know uh which obviously you know they they’re not the wheels don’t exactly fit the gauge of the train so they’re having to go on the on the sleepers and so this you got this jolting journey and every time they reach a bridge the sleepers aren’t you know there isn’t much um the bridges are quite narrow they they’re built for the trains and so they have this kind of nerve-wracking jolting Journey over these Railway Bridges where there are no sides it’s just you know the uh the the metal uh rails and then the sleepers underneath that’s it so there’s nothing between them and just falling off the side um and then they encounter A Train That’s Coming the opposite direction to them and their wheels get stuck and all the passengers abandon the train abandon the car except for the poor man whose back was was injured earlier that day when the car flipped and he suddenly finds he’s unable to move his legs so he’s obviously done some sort of um some sort of nerve damage and he can’t you know he’s trying to lift them with his hands to get to rescue to save himself and get himself out of the car but he can’t and as the train is sort of bearing down on the on the car finally someone manages to to push the car up and over the rails and they they go down the um the embankment and and make it to safety and they kind of hobble into this small town after this you know they must have been completely shell shocked and the only place available for them to stay in this little village is the old theater where miners put on like amram Productions and so they they fall as they have to sort of make up camp and fall asleep on the stage and they can’t find the stage lights for ages they’re kind of like stumbling around trying to turn off the the strong lights that are used on the stage and I just the story of that that day and ending as it is in that way um really sticks with me as just an incredible an incredible moment for the depth of the emotion and despair and anxiety and relief um that they must have been feeling were there any mindsets that you had learned about I know like when you go back and do this research there’s such a different attitude toward cars at the time than there is now and that process has always been evolving but were there any attitudes or mindsets that you read about like regarding the automobile that surprised you or felt especially relevant or totally irrelevant now m so they are really excited about speed that the capacity for Speed really excites them um and a lot of the most um lyrical accounts that they that the participants write are during the times when they’re able to get up some speed which actually isn’t that often because the roads are so poor but there’s an incredible moment when they’re sort of going through the GOI desert and the sand of the of the desert is relatively hard packed and so they can actually get up a amount of pace and there are wild horses um a herd of wild horses kind of starts Galloping alongside um the car um and uh you know that really sticks with them that they kind of worship the the speed and the possibility of speed that the car gives them in this way that we just you know we just don’t think about it as being such a um we think about it in a very different way we’re excited by it but it’s the the further and the way that it’s tied to civilization and progress um is very kind of late 19th century early 20th century um there’s also uh the very Colonial mindset in that they feel that they are bringing a a new technology to bited peoples to barbarians they feel like um the automobile is a is a symbol of progress in an illumination and they are able to bring it to a part of the world that doesn’t have it um this narrative that they have is very strong at the beginning um but as they actually realize the limitations of the car and they have to rely more and more on local people that kind of disappears and and alters and adapts you know it’s kind of not really a it’s kind of this sort of optimistic um narrative that doesn’t really survive encounter with the real world but in the first few days in these first few accounts when they’re kind of looking ahead and imagining what the journey will be like it’s a very very very strong um flavor of of their narratives I really I think that’s so fascinating I’ve seen a lot of the photos where there’s like local folks picking up the cars and moving them from somewhere because of the mud being too thick or what have you um I love that the actual like encounter with reality changed their perspective um did your perspective on what you wanted this book to be evolve as you were writing it absolutely so you know I when I first started um doing the research for the for the pitch before I started um fully into writing the book I was really excited about um kind of upending um this kind of this race as being kind of like a way of upending um um several different worlds simultaneously so you’ve got this the birth of this new technology you’ve also got the um move of the technological heart of the um of the automotive World from Western Europe to America you know the year after this um this race concludes uh the very first Model T um comes off production lines and you know already that shift is is is happening but you know I think 190 is such a pivotal year with the first modal T that you can really see that that shift is is is um is completely inevitable in in 1908 in and so it just felt like such a great um it felt like such a sort of neat pivotal moment in so many different ways and again you know of course you actually start writing it and just like the drivers have their sort of contact with reality those narratives become a lot Messier and that’s not a bad thing I think the story is richer um for the complicated nuances that come up but you know things like I was really excited by the possibility of the fact that maybe the winner that had been announced at the time wasn’t actually shouldn’t actually be celebrated as the real winner maybe um it should be another person and maybe the winner at the time had been announced because he was sort of a very high social standing and maybe the true hero was someone who was more of a modern man and that seemed like one of those kind of neat arcs um however you know looking at it I actually felt that the right person the right person won um and and that was something that I that surprised me in in the research and the writing but the more I learned about him and I I was able to meet quite a few um and speak to quite a few descendants of of the various participants um and you know everything I I leared about um uh the winner was was um you know solidified my feeling that he was the deserving winner and just to from a like a much broader perspective um learning about the evolution of the automobile um is there anything that surprised you or anything like you’ve learned and you’re like how did we get where we are today if that was the mindset then so I think what something that makes me a bit sad actually is the fact that in 1907 you have lots of different fuel types um that are still being experimented with and eventually you know um particularly when uh the heart of the automotive World transfers to the States you know you get you know petrochemicals you get you get gas coming out on top as the winner and I feel like it’s a real shame that that is the case I wish a plurality of fuel types had continued to be used because actually the way in which we use Vehicles is different you know if you are you know lots of people own cars as little City runarounds then and now lots of Journeys are very short um um the vast majority of Journeys are very short and at the time they had electric automobiles that were very useful for that kind of thing and it wouldn’t it be great if you if people had sort of thought oh we need a different you know petrol is really useful when you’re going a long distance but actually for most of your Journeys going short distances we could have something that is like you know electric and and and and that would be great you also have people thinking about other fuel types so you know alcohol based fuel was something that they were really excited about experimenting with at the time and you also had steam so if they were um using really heavy loads um so for kind of the transportation of of like heavy Goods um they were using steam now that isn’t to say that all of those fuel types would have been commercially viable long term you know there is a reason why petrol one out but I think if we had been able to retain the min set that different um that actually it was no bad thing having a plurality of options for for different uses I think that could have been a really useful a really useful model the other thing that makes me sad is that there were quite often sort of fleets of you know taxis or Vehicles particularly electric vehicles being used at the at the time in 1907 in cities um places like Berlin and London had sort of fleets of electric cars and I think um car Individual Car ownership isn’t great for cities because in cities spaces at premium um it’s it’s much better really if you can um you know if you’re not you know wasting wasting loads of space on on parking you know that makes cities much nicer to live in because you can you can get around and you’re not kind of reliant on having to get in your car every time you need something so um yes I I wish that we’d I that that kind of plurality mindset and the openness to um other options hadn’t you know um been kind of snuffed out um so early in the 20th century I think it can it can really surprise a lot of people when they learn like electric vehicles are not a brand new invention they were you know back at the start of the the car we had these totally different forms of technology it was just we all decided we’re going to go one route and that was it um what was the most rewarding part of writing this book for you oh goodness that’s a great question um to be honest uh I I was really excited about tackling a very big challenge you know and and this book um was complex you know you you are trying to tell a great story about one particular journey and then you’ve also got these you know interleaving um essays contextual essays and so it’s a very big story um and there’s you know lots of lots of ground to cover um and so being having a having been able to complete the book to my satisfaction and accomplish what I set out to do was immensely satisfying and really scratched and itch you know my previous books had been based on on shorter essays and so were um structurally a lot simpler and this was much more complex um it’s not something that I’m known for uh as a journalist I’ve predominantly written about kind of color and and style and and culture and I was you know books assistant books and arts editor at The Economist so you know that’s where I’ve spent my time and so tackling a a big new topic with real devotees who are going to pick you up on on mistakes um that felt very satisfying and I’m sure that there are mistakes and I’m sure that deves of Motorsports will bemoan the fact that I you know haven’t spent as much time on the kind of technical details but I also really wanted to make this story um accessible for generalists because most people experienc the car as generalists and um and so I felt that was really important and what’s what’s next for you what are you kind of delving into in the for your future projects so uh I had I was working on a couple of of pitches um the beginning of this year for for for new projects that are kind of you know big history projects of of the type you know of secet Liv of color and the golden thread and and now peeking to Paris you know along similar lines um one which I’m really excited about is kind of staying in the sports realm um but actually a couple of months ago um another uh project came up which requires an incredibly tight deadline um and it’s actually a bit of a return to kind of the color and the textile World um but it’s for a big um a Big Brand um that has a an anniversary coming up and it’s an incredibly tight deadline but it’s really exciting project so despite the fact that I heard the deadline and sort of like inwardly and I think maybe even outwardly like shrieked in horror um I still was really excited to take it on um and yes I’m working hard at that at the moment but I want to return to those those other um pictures uh when I can perfect those were all the questions that I had for you uh thank you so much for taking the time today I am so excited to read this book like you cannot even imagine oh well I really hope you enjoy it um and yeah I think it’s a great story and I I hope you I hope your listeners um you know get excited about it and and enjoy the episode [Applause] [Music] when the 1907 peing to Paris race finally came to a close no one had much of an idea about how profoundly this adventure was going to change the world no no one was leaping from their cars preparing to offer countless Innovations or to introduce new philosophies about about the Motorcar however the breathless coverage of the race in newspapers all around the world transformed the race from just that a race into a whole new way of thinking about the vehicle see in 1907 the automobile was still extremely fallible and the jury was out about where they would rank in the grand scheme of Transportation options in the future on one hand you had a group of people who firmly believed that Motorcars were one of the most promising inventions of all time while very large and equally loud contingent argued that actually these slow heavy inefficient expensive and Loud machines would never manag to stack up against a network of competent Railways and horse trails that had linked one city to the next Vehicles were just a play thing for the rich a fad that would pass with time the peaking to Paris race though highlighted that these cars actually were really capable yes they did Excel on neatly paved roads and yes they struggled through just about every other kind of terrain but most of the cars that set off from China did make it back to France rainstorms mountain passes deserts inhospitable towns broken Wheels car fires and exhausted passengers simply failed to put a damper on the abilities of this new fangled Automotive Machinery it was enough of a Triumph that all those Skeptics were forced to consider the potential these vehicles held in the aftermath of the race several other key events took place that proceeded to change the future of the automobile first came Henry Ford’s Innovative Model T released in 1908 this Universal Car democratized the act of Motoring for large sads of the world that had previously considered these machines out of their reach the Model T was cheap durable and easy to use compared to other cars being made in the era unlike the Model T many automakers had treated the creation of a vehicle as an art form they provided multiple kinds of body sty St and wheelbases tons of colors varying capabilities and enough options to make your head spin the Model T rolled off the line loaded with Innovations but the version of the car that you bought would be pretty much the same as the one your neighbor bought that enabled Ford to speed up production and lower costs which led a whole new economic demographic see these vehicles as achievable for the first time further because they were easier to operate than the previous iterations of the automobile you could more easily get people behind the wheel without requiring a specific skill set and then came World War I War has a tendency to cause massive sweeping changes in everything from social welfare to technology and when tensions reached a Breaking Point on July 28th 1914 the automobile eventually became one of the key players the vehicles that hit the battlefield still weren’t particularly stunning efficient or reli ible but they were way more efficient and reliable than the previous primary form of transportation during war horses supplying horses to the front was costly thanks to the labor required to raise and care for the animal followed by the care that they need during the war horses needed huge amounts of food to sustain themselves and they also needed to be brushed washed Shaw and more horses naturally shy away from loud noises like gunfire and should a horse return from the front they often exhibited signs of post-traumatic stress disorder in much the same way that human soldiers did the cars of World War I may not have been particularly fast reliable or comfortable but they required fewer supplies and less care to function well when compared to horses and the peaking to Paris race proved that this burgeoning technology could handle terrains once considered impassible still the first waves of troops in the Great War were staffed with tons of animal power horses mules oxen camels donkeys elephants pigeons cats dogs mice reindeer even canaries it was only as the conflicts really dragged on and that animal death toll Rose and supplies continued to dwindle that various militaries had to begin bulking up their supplementary Automotive forces when cars started being deployed in greater numbers during the war their advantages were clear they were more difficult to Target than railway lines which meant that supplies could more effectively be brought to and from the front without having to worry about bombings or raids completely ruining that element of Transportation motorized ambulances could more quickly transport injured soldiers to Medical Care Vehicles could take on a fair bit of damage before they became unusable and didn’t require any time to heal injuries soon automakers were building specialized vehicles for war including heavily armored tanks that promised to bring an end to trench warfare stalemates then after the war St Clair notes that a widespread influence of pandemic killed millions of people and that drastically changed the demographics of people who were using Vehicles women needed to join the workforce and relish the freedom that a vehicle could provide the influenza had killed a lot of people and so there were fewer people to care for large fleets of horses necessitating a change in transport for the folks who previously relied on the the animal power of their Staples and as vehicle production ramped up during wartime so too did the number of vehicles on the road all this in large part because a daring slate of 11 men embarked on an 8,000m journey across two continents a decade before I truly cannot praise St cla’s book enough you guys know how much I love plenty of historical context in my Motorsport stories and the race to the future is absolutely packed with detail whether that’s about the peaking to Paris race itself or about the societal changes that made such a trip possible in the first place the book is organized in such a way that one chapter will discuss the progress of the race and the next will establish some important elements of context to better help you appreciate the Feats being completed by these Daredevil Crews as drivers send their first telegrams St Clair helps you understand how critical an invention the telegraph was as drivers Tru through rural Siberia St Clair discusses the long history of the horse as a form of transportation and why we had to move on to something new in another chapter she just as artfully explores why gasoline became the deao power source for automobiles when at the turn of the 20th century we were using everything from alcohol to electricity to move Motor Cars when she describes the harsh Landscapes of the EUR mountains or the GOI desert she draws on additional written work from other adventurers who had completed similar SAR Journeys in previous years albe it on horse or on Camel after all the Intrepid Adventures of the peaking to Paris weren’t always particularly interested in capturing the nuance and Ambiance of a region especially after a particularly trying day or in areas where Telegraph stations weren’t readily available I wrote about this sentiment in my book review for Jalopnik but part of me wants to call this book a romp while another part of me feels like that just wouldn’t do justice to the incredible amount of work that cassia St Clair has done so many parts of the race to the Future are a blast I never wanted to put this book down because I was always desperate to learn more about the dramas of the Spiker team the impressive Feats of the itala or the raw frustration of the day Dion drivers I was also pretty damn desperate to contextualize the impressive Feats of these drivers I wanted to know more about the place that women held in the automotive world or about the evolution of the road from a public G gaing place to a place where the presence of a human body was criminalized I wanted to know about the logistical nightmare that horses had become As Cities grew larger and about how the introduction of the automobile could change different locations in so many different ways I have to send all my thanks to cassia stclair both for taking the time to join me in deadly passion’s terrible Joys and for writing this book in the first place the race to the future is going to have a place of honor on my Motorsport bookshelf from here on out [Applause] [Music] thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of deadly passion’s terrible Joys after this episode I’m going back to my original every other week posting schedule but you are not going to want to miss the next episode we’re delving into the most dangerous job in Motorsport history right in mechanics if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to the show give it a rating and leave a review and if you’re hungry for more please make sure to subscribe to the dpj patreon tiered patrons get exclusive access to weekly blog posts and newsletters where I delve deeper into all things Motorsport and if you want to send an email I have an address for that deadly passions terrible Joys gmail.com this week I want to share a great comment from slow car fast who writes finally a podcast that gets into the darker and dare I say more interesting facets of racing after the donut racing show was cancelled I was thrilled that Elizabeth announced this podcast as she quickly became my favorite host and she always offered great context to the episodes thank you so much for the wonderful words and also for the amazingly helpful feedback about audio mixing I know I’ve mentioned this before but this podcast is my debut into the audiovisual realm so I’m always learning as I go I also want to give a very special shout out to patreon subscriber Ryan lurman Ryan is the very first member of the world champions patreon tier which means so much to me Ryan thank you so much for your ongoing support and if you also want to shout out make sure to subscribe don’t forget to check out HomeField apparel as we get closer to indy500 season we’re getting so much great Open Wheel merch and don’t forget to use code DP j15 for 15% off your first purchase and speaking of the n500 if you’ll be at the track on race day morning please come hang out in the pagot plaza as it gets closer to race day I’ll post more details on my social media accounts which are linked in the description every year it’s my personal tradition to hang out for a few hours chatting with anyone who wants to come say hello it’s super low stakes so hang out as long or as short as you want bring your friends wave from a distance I don’t mind I just want to see your wonderful smiling faces everywhere I [Applause] [Music] go finally we’re ending with lourus the segment named after the iconic turn at spa Fran cran but that serves as my bibliography for each episode it’s important for me to be able to site regularly and accurately so I’m giving a shout out to the most influential sources at the end of each episode with the full list in my description this week our list is short sweet and to the point my info came from the race to the Future 8,000 Mi to Paris the adventure that accelerated the 20th century by cassia stclair by the time this episode is posted this incredible book will be released so make sure you go show your love to everyone who’s keeping the wildest stories in Motorsport history alive and well the link to the book will be in my description thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of deadly passions terrible Joys I’ll see you next time