Contested 100 years ago, the torturous race covered the width of the United States before stopping at points in Alaska, Japan, Siberia, and Berlin before ending in Paris. It has never been run again.
With the automobile barely a decade old, the thought of an around-the-globe race was unheard of at the time, but also very tempting to the adventurers of the day. The New York-to-Paris race turned out to be much more than a race.
Sponsored by The New York Times and the Paris-based La Matin paper, teams from France (Motobloc, DeDion, Sizaire-Naudin), Italy (Zust), Germany (Protos), and the United States (Thomas) entered in the challenge. Nearly 250,000 people were on hand Feb. 12, 1908, to cheer the event's departure from Times Square. The winning Thomas Flyer covered 22,000 miles in 169 days, a record that still stands today.
Famed collector William Harrah found the Thomas Flyer in the early Sixties and, with the help of George Schuster, the only member of the U.S. team to drive the entire 22,000-mile race, he painstakingly brought the vehicle back to its original trim just as it entered Paris in 1908. Weighing in at 4,000 pounds fully loaded, the Thomas Flyer’s four-cylinder power plant could propel it to 60 mph. The car finished 26 days ahead of the second-place German-entered Protos.
The 2008 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance will be held on the 10th and 18th fairways of The Golf Club of Amelia Island at Summer Beach adjacent to The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island. Parnelli Jones is the honoree and the cars of the E.R. Thomas Motor Car Co. will be featured. The show’s Foundation has donated nearly $1.5 million to Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, Inc. since 1996.
For more information, visit www.ameliaconcours.org or telephone the organization, 904-636-0027.
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