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Hoe het begon
On 31 January 1907, the Parisian daily newspaper Le Matin announced “a stupendous challenge” to every motorist who was prepared to try to drive the then untried 16,000 kilometer route from Peking to Paris by car. It had already become a tradition for annual car rallies to be organised from Paris. These races became more challenging each year, but this challenge went beyond any of the previous routes ever attempted by car. The only way to travel from Peking to Lake Baikal was on horseback, and most of the inhabitants of China, Mongolia and Russia had never seen a car before. There were scarcely any roads, and the roads that did exist were of poor quality. Five teams accepted the challenge set by Le Matin. The newspaper offered no sponsorship; the support provided was only organisational plus the prizes to be awarded at the finishing line. The massive popularity of such types of rallies meant that every team had to take a journalist with them to report on the event. These journalists telegraphed their stories back home using the many telegraph offices along the route. Partly thanks to this possibility, the entire event was recorded in great detail. These journey accounts still exist today, accompanied by beautiful photographs.
Godard and Stegwee arriving in Paris after their journey from Amsterdam. Their Spyker is packed full of parts, which Godard shortly afterwards sold in order to pay for his voyage to Peking (in a first-class cabin).