Hard Driving
The 1908 Auto Race From New York to Paris
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
In the winter of 1908, six cars left Times Square bound for Paris. They were embarking on a remarkable motor race across the world that would capture everyone’s imagination. In this book, Dermot Cole weaves a thrilling account of the improbable journey west from New York to Paris, the varied characters, and the nascent automobile industry. Drawing from the drivers’ journals and extensive newspaper reports, Cole details the many hardships, triangulations, and physical extremes encountered along the route as the drivers attempted to race from coast to coast, cross the Bering Strait to Russia, traverse Siberia, and onward.
Hard Driving delves beyond the riveting headlines to explore the race’s implications for global politics and diplomacy and how the automobile became a viable mode of transportation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
``Impossible'' driving might more accurately describe the famed round-the-world trip cosponsored by Le Matin of Paris and the New York Times. The race began in Manhattan in February of 1908 with six vehicles entered: three French, a German, an Italian and an American. One of the French entries lasted less than 100 miles, but the others all finished, the first of them in July. The cars headed to Chicago via Buffalo over wretched roads, and west to California over virtually nonexistent roads. The plan to continue via Alaska was scrapped, so the contestants took ship to Japan, drove across that country, then went by ship again to Vladivostok, motoring across Siberia, Russia and Europe. All of the drivers hitched more than one ride on railroads. The German car reached Paris first, but the American team was declared the winner. Cole, editor of the Fairbanks, Alaska, Daily News-Miner , has written a rollicking, fun-filled book. Photos not seen by PW.
