Peking to Paris

The race was held during a time when cars were fairly new and the route traversed remote areas of Asia where people were not yet familiar with motor travel.

The event was not intended to be a race or competition, but quickly became one due to its pioneering nature and the technical superiority of the Italians' car, a 7,433 cc (453.6 cu in) Itala 35/45 HP.

The Contal cyclecar became bogged down in the Gobi Desert and was not recovered, with the crew lucky to be found alive by locals.

In 1997 there was "The Second Peking to Paris Motor Challenge", consisting of 94 vintage cars, which took a more southerly route through Tibet, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

On 18 April 2005 a 1973 Fiat 500 made it from Bari, Italy, to Beijing in a 16,000-kilometre (9,900 mi) journey across the whole of Russia and passing through Vladivostok.

Driven for 100 days by Danilo Elia and Fabrizio Bonserio, the old and tiny car was followed along its journey by newspapers and television from all over the world.

This journey was televised by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in a four-part documentary series entitled Peking to Paris.

The show was hosted by Warren Brown, one of two drivers on the Itala and a cartoonist with Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

The route then went west across Mongolia, crossing the Russian border at Tsagaannuur through Siberia to Moscow, on to St Petersburg (where Prince Borghese attended "a great banqet") and then through the Baltic states to finish in Paris.

In the third week, the race was marred by the death of a British participant, 46-year-old mother-of-two Emma Wilkinson, in a head-on collision with a vehicle unconnected with the event.