Nearly 100 vintage and classic cars have set off on a month-long trek from Beijing to Paris, with models from a 1913 Ford Model T to Bentleys and Mustangs starting out in the shadow of the Great Wall of China.
The Peking-to-Paris Challenge stretches more than 12 400km through the Gobi desert in Mongolia to Russian back roads, across the Ukraine, Slovakia, Austria and Switzerland to in France.
Car No.1 is a hulking black 1917 La France Tourer boasting a 14.5-litre engine, with large round headlights and a single rectangular pane for a windshield. It’s followed by a fleet of painstakingly restored and maintained vehicles, among them several Bentleys, from a regal and heavy silver 1936 model to a narrower 1927 version with a rounded body, and a number of Rolls-Royces.
“LONGEST AND TOUGHEST CHALLENGE”
More recent classic cars include Porsche 911s, a Morris Oxford, and a few VW Beetles and Volvos.
Drivers will cover several hundred kilometres each day for 33 days. The Endurance Rally Association calls this “the longest and toughest challenge anyone can drive in a vintage or classic car, an extraordinary adventure driving through some of the remotest places on earth”.
This is the fourth Peking-to-Paris Challenge since 1997; it commemorates a historic 1907 race, which was won by Prince Scipione Borghese in an seven-litre Itala. - AFP