F1LOS’ofia: Will that wheel reach Paris or not?

– See, what a wheel! What do you think, will that wheel, if it happens, reach Moscow or not?

– Will arrive.

– And I don’t think he will reach Kazan?

– It won’t reach Kazan.

Nikolai Gogol, “Dead souls”

Let’s start from afar. When I was very young, but already had an inexplicable desire for all things self-driving, one of my favorite pastimes was leafing through the old Avtomobilist almanac, two of which were in my parents’ library.

They say that this rarity can still be found at second-hand booksellers – at the very beginning of the 60s, the publishing house “Physical Culture and Sport” released three such yearbooks. There was just a sea of ​​u200bu200binteresting things, and unlike the magazine “Behind the Rulem”, which I also really liked, “Avtomobilist” was quite thick and it took much longer to study it.

Of course, far from all the material of the almanac remained in my memory, which is no wonder, because the last time I held it in my hands half a century ago, and I do not know where it has gone since. But some texts and pictures I remember well, and one of them was a multi-page story about a great motor rally along the Beijing-Paris route, which took place in the summer of 1907.

Knowing how often my father played with our family ZAZ-966M, a car by Soviet standards of the early 70s, more or less modern, with which something happened all the time, I just could not imagine that primitive technology began century was able to endure an incredible journey of 16 thousand kilometers (according to other sources, the distance was 14994 km).

The story of the achievement of Italian car enthusiasts was accompanied by an abundance of curious photographs, mostly taken on the road, more precisely, in the midst of the impassability of Tsarist Russia, and all this was very impressive and forever etched in the memory.

We are missing half a century. Last December, publishing house MIF, together with Pirelli Tire Russia, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Pirelli and the 115th anniversary of the Italian company’s participation in motorsport, published a thick and richly illustrated folio in a bright red cover “From Beijing to Paris in 60 Days”.

The author of the book is the Italian journalist Luigi Barzini, a participant in that incredibly daring adventure, and anyone who reads this very fascinating book will be convinced that the transcontinental motorcycle rally can be described in this way.

When her copy was delivered to our editorial office, I was immediately seized with nostalgic memories: of course, these are the oldest photos I saw in the Avtomobilist almanac, it’s scary to say how many years ago! And now I can read not just an extract from Barzini’s travel notes, but his entire work, first published in 1908.

Besides, the enlightened Europe followed the progress of the great supermarathon, as we would say now, almost online, because it was already the age of the telegraph, so from everywhere possible Barzini sent his messages, and they appeared in the world’s leading newspapers – Italian Corriere della Sera, French Le Matin and British Daily Telegraph.

On June 10, 1907, five cars started the historic rally, as Barzini calls it. The crew, including the author of the book, was led by Prince Scipione Borghese, one of the richest people in Italy at the time, a passionate motorist. But actually Ettore Guidzarde, a professional driver and, most importantly, an excellent mechanic, was at the wheel. They drove an Itala car from the company of the same name from Turin, which existed from 1903 to 1934.

The car was equipped with a 4-cylinder engine with a working volume of 7433 cc, developing only 50 horsepower, and a four-speed gearbox. Although the 35/45 was a production model, this particular Itala was, at the behest of Prince Borghese, specially prepared for such a run. However, the changes were not too serious.

So in total, during a long journey, five cars were poisoned from the French embassy in Beijing. In addition to Itala, there were two De Dion-Boutons, a three-wheeled Contal (both French manufacturers) and a Dutch Spyker. Yes, yes, this is the same Spyker brand, which was presented in Formula 1 100 years later (in 2007)! Now this team, after several renamings, is called Aston Martin.

It was Spyker who arrived in Paris second, but this is not even mentioned in the book, since it is completely devoted to the adventures of the Itala crew. And the adventures were real, and I assure you: Luigi Barzini’s detailed accounts of what he and his comrades had to endure in China, Mongolia and Russia are no less fascinating to read than the novels of a certain Jules Verne.

Naturally, Prince Borghese’s crew won that run, arriving in Paris on August 10, 1907—20 days ahead of the Spyker. And of course Itala drove from the Pacific almost to the Atlantic on Pirelli tires – there is also a lot of information in the book about how Italian rubber worked on the road, and especially off-road at the turn of the last century. Only four kits were needed for the whole distance, and on the last of these, Itala from Paris then also reached Milan.

In general, the verb “to drive” applies to travel with reservations, since the car has traveled quite a distance through the territory of mountainous China due to the fact that it was pulled by oxen and pushed by two dozen specially hired Chinese workers for this one. Simply because there were no roads at all, except for camel tracks, along which trading caravans walked.

When the car could not run on horse-drawn traction, but alone, the travelers were genuinely happy, even if Itala did not crawl much faster than the same oxen. This went on day after day, and only when the carriage reached the steppes of Mongolia did Prince Borghese and his companions take leave of the Chinese auxiliaries and set out on their own. But not because there were roads in Mongolia, but simply because the steppe is still more or less flat and it was possible to just drive along the telegraph line. It led to the Russian border and it was hard to get lost.

It would probably be wrong to say that the main adventures began in Russia, but they were so interesting that more than half of the book is dedicated to them. What happened only to Itala – she got stuck in Siberian swamps, crossed rivers where there were no bridges, and if there were, there was always a risk that they would fall under the weight of the car.

Once this is exactly what happened, and our heroes barely escaped, only miraculously avoiding serious injury. But they were able to continue their journey after twenty Siberian lumberjacks, led by the head of the station with the romantic name Sixteenth Sorting, were able to pull the wagon out with technical ingenuity and put it back on wheels. Overall it was nice.

It is clear that there were no gas stations in Siberia at that time, so it is worth adding that the trip was generally well organized and supplies of gasoline, oil and other necessary materials were kept along the route in advance. handed out.

In addition to all kinds of stories, sometimes downright unbelievable, the book contains many observations and reasonings of the author about the life of those countries and regions through which they passed, and reading this now, after 115 years, is also extremely curious .

In general, Itala and his combat squad overcame all difficulties, crossed Eurasia from east to west, passed through China, Mongolia, Siberia, the Urals, the Volga region, reached Moscow, turned around on the way to St. Petersburg and only then continued the Baltic states, Poland, Germany and Belgium reached France. On August 10, 1907, the brave travelers triumphantly entered Paris, where they were hailed as heroes. After reading Luigi Barzini’s book you have no doubt that they were the real heroes of their time.

I will quote a few lines that well characterize their state of mind at that moment: “The prince slows down. The car stops. The journey is over! For us, this is an indescribable moment of celebration.

Loud applause from the audience. We sit in our chairs, confused, bewildered… For a moment I have a sense of hallucination. It all seems absolutely unbelievable, absurd to me. I can’t believe we actually reached our goal! ..”

By the way, it should be noted that the book is very well translated and the literary editors did their best, so “From Beijing to Paris in 60 days” reads almost like an adventure novel. Actually, the only difference is that everything told in the book actually happened.