Carrera Panamericana

The Carrera Panamericana was a border-to-border sedan (stock and touring and sports car) rally racing event on open roads in Mexico similar to the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio in Italy.

After the 2,178 mile (3,507 kilometer) north-south Mexican section of the Pan-American Highway was completed in 1950, a nine-stage, five-day race across the country was organized by the national government to celebrate its achievement and attract international business.

The Mexican government's representatives worked closely with the American Automobile Association and other motor sports groups in the United States to organize and promote the event which was limited to stock sedans with five seats.

Piero Taruffi and Felice Bonetto, both Italian F1 drivers, entered a pair of Alfa Romeo coupes specially constructed for the event.

[2] McGriff also noted that the control afforded by his manual gearbox gave him a significant advantage the last day on the gravel roads in Chiapas, when he finally passed the Cadillac leading the race.

The following year, the race was run from south to north, starting in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas on the Mexican/Guatemalan border and finishing in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua on the Mexican/U.S.

The race was moved from early May to late November to avoid the hot and rainy weather at that time of year in Mexico and to give the European teams a chance to compete during what was normally their off-season.

Although the registered driver for the race was Carlos' daughter Teresa, he was at the wheel of a 1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS despite poor health and not having a valid license.

[5] First and second places were won by the works Ferraris 212 Inters driven by Piero Taruffi and Alberto Ascari, third and fourth by ordinary American cars.

Bill Sterling, a salesman from El Paso, Texas, placed third in a Chrysler Saratoga entered by Carl Kiekhaefer of the Mercury Marine boat motor manufacturer, and well-known race car driver Troy Ruttman followed him in a flat-head V8 Mercury Eight he reportedly had bought for $1,000 in a used car lot in El Monte, California yet bested several factory Lancias and Ferraris.

As the birds scattered at the roar of the virtually unsilenced 300 SL, one impacted through the windscreen on the passenger side, briefly knocking co-driver and navigator Klenk unconscious.

Despite bleeding badly from facial injuries caused by the shattered windscreen, Klenk ordered Kling to maintain speed, and held on until a tire change almost 70 km (43 mi) later to clean himself and the car up.

The co-driver and pacenote systems championed by the Mercedes teams of the previous year were vindicated by the failure of an alternative contemporary system used by some other works drivers, notably those of Lancia who in 1953 year had entered five cars; three 3.3-litre D24s[9] for Felice Bonetto, Juan Manuel Fangio and Piero Taruffi, winner of the 1951 edition of the race, and two 3-litre versions for Giovanni Bracco and Eugenio Castellotti.

During pre-race runs of the route at much safer speeds, Bonetto and Taruffi painted warning signals on the road to remind themselves of particular hazards.

On the first stage between the cities of Tuxtla Gutiérrez and Oaxaca, American Bob Christie, with his mechanic Kenneth Wood, failed to make a left turn, and his Ford went off the road backwards.

In addition to this horrific tragedy, Italians Antonio Stagnoli and his co-driver Giuseppe Scotuzzi in a Ferrari 375 MM lost their lives when a blown tyre caused them to crash in the small town of Juchitán de Zaragoza on that same first stage between Tuxtla Guitierrez and Oaxaca.

[11] Phil Hill won second place in earlier Ferrari 375 MM with Ray Crawford winning the stock car class in a Lincoln.

Californian hot rod pioneer Ak Miller (born Arkton Moeller in Denmark, not to be confused with A. K. Miller) became famous by winning fifth place in his Oldsmobile powered 1927 Ford body on a 1950 Ford frame, "El Caballo del Hierro" (the iron horse), nicknamed by Mexicans as "El Ensalada" (the salad).

Unlike more compact circuits, the long stage sections were impossible to secure entirely, making it possible for crashes to linger for several hours before being noticed.

Despite their models being small and often quite underpowered (especially with regard to American and other German opponents) Porsche enjoyed some success in the race, mainly class wins.

Similarly, the watchmaker Heuer, then known for its motorsport stopwatches, introduced a chronograph called the "Carrera Panamerica" after the 1953 race, which developed into its long-running 'Carrera' range.

[13] In the same way, Mercedes-AMG (high performance division of Mercedes-Benz road cars) named a new grille after this race: the Panamericana-Grille can be found on almost all AMG vehicles starting from 2018.

It is run with official backing on special closed stages of the public road network and fast transit sections through central Mexico until recently at unlimited speeds approaching 180 mph (290 km/h).

Drivers and navigators are required to wear two- or three-layer fire-resistant suits, HANS devices, and label their helmets, uniforms, and respective sides of the car with their blood types and allergies.

Mechanical attrition for the more classic cars often leads to burst brake lines and overheated engines, but crashes are also common on the winding roads.

In 2006, a 19-year-old co-driver survived a serious head injury that left him in a coma after his Jaguar E-Type Roadster crashed into a pine forest; Rusty Ward, another competitor, rolled a Studebaker from a bridge into a river, having finished the event in a similar fashion the previous year.

In a retro step, Cadillac entered a replica of the 1954 Series 62 coupe that a Colorado Springs dealer loaned to "five ordinary guys from Chicago", in order to revive a half-century old duel with Lincoln.

The car was reunited with Blu Plemons, the co-driver of the original (the driver, Keith Anderson, was killed in practice for the 1957 Indy 500) at the starting line.

[citation needed] The 2007 event, according to Eduardo de León Camargo (President emeritus of La Carrera Panamericana), was the largest recreation to date.

From there, the route led the convoy in day-long sections consecutively between Tehuacán, Puebla, Querétaro, Morelia, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas and Nuevo Laredo.