Author: Karl Smallwood / Source: Today I Found Out
As the official name of Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail suggests, the idea of this particular event was to see who could drive from Paris to Bordeaux and back again in the quickest possible time. For reference, this was a distance of 1,178 km or 732 miles on the roads of the day.
So what was so special about this particular race? Well, for the first time in history, a large group of automobiles would be pitted against one another in a first to finish-style event, with said race kicking off on June 11, 1895.The brainchild of a group of automobile enthusiasts and journalists keen to promote the then fledgling French automobile industry, the race was seen as a way to both test the limits of cars at the time as well as test the commercial viability of motor racing as a spectator sport.
Although, as we’ve previously noted, this was only a couple decades after an era in which competitive walking was one of the world’s most popular spectator sports, so the competition was pretty light. And, to be perfectly clear- we’re not talking speed walking- just regular leisurely walking for hours and hours on end… In fact, certain walking matches were known to draw tens of thousands of spectators. Yes, before YouTube, our forebears found watching people casually walking in circles for sometimes days on end without stopping great entertainment, though to be fair this was probably really just an ideal excuse to get together and socialize. To tie it back to cars, in some respects this is not too dissimilar from NASCAR, but without the occasional flaming crashes.
In any event, previous to the Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail others had variously raced individual cars against one another, with perhaps the first such race occurring on August 30, 1867 where a steam powered car built by Isaac Watt Boulton, driven by his son, competed in an eight mile race against one of Daniel Adamson’s steam cars, with the driver in the latter case not known today.
More significantly, in 1878 in the United States, the Wisconsin Legislature attempted to organize a 200 mile race for self propelled vehicles, but only two vehicles ended up entering. Slightly more humorously in 1887 in Paris a two kilometer race was organized by a local paper, but only one person, one Georges Bouton of the De Dion-Bouton Company, entered. Naturally, he won…
Moving closer to what we’d today consider an automobile race was an event that took place in Paris in 1894- the Paris-Rouen Rally. However, while this is sometimes called the actual first car race, it should be noted that, beyond the organizers of the event explicitly noting it was not a race in a December of 1893 edition of the Le Petit Journal describing the event, the winner was not the car that crossed the finish line first. Rather, the winner was decided by a panel of judges based on the overarching criteria of which car was closest to “ideal”, with ideal here referring to the car that was simultaneously relatively cheap to purchase and operate, most reliable, and easiest and safest to drive.
Towards that end, while the order of finishing the course was considered in determining the winner, the car that crossed the finish line first was not given 1st place as it needed a second person to ride along to stoke the flames to keep it going. Instead, the first prize of 5,000 francs (extremely roughly between about $30,000 to $400,000 today depending on what inflation metric you want to use) was shared between two companies, most notable for the story at hand, one of which being Panhard et Levassor.
This brings us to about a year later and the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris Trail competition. In this event, the winning car was intended to be the one that completed the circuit first, with a few stipulations. First, any winning car was required to have more than two seats. Second, while mid-race repairs and maintenance were allowed, they could only be performed with materials stored in the vehicle itself. On top of this, drivers were allowed to switch out as often as they liked. Finally, largely to stop manufacturers flooding the race with their own vehicles to pad the odds in their own favor, it was ruled that manufactures could only enter one of each type of vehicle they produced.
In total, some 23 automobiles entered the race, only 9 of which would finish the arduous journey between the cities, with eight of those being ICE vehicles (internal combustion engine) and the ninth being a seven seater steam car. On top of gas and steam powered automobiles, there was even an all electric car entered- yes, contrary to popular perception, electric cars actually dominated the automobile world in the earliest days of the industry.
For example, in New York City in 1899 approximately 90% of all taxi cabs were electric cars, mostly built by Electric Carriage and Wagon Company of Philadelphia. Not only that, but in 1899 and 1900, electric cars outsold all other types of automobiles. In 1902 an electric car, the Baker Torpedo, became the first car to have an aerodynamic…
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