Hard Driving: The 1908 Auto Race from New York to Paris

Did you ever see the Hanna Barbera cartoon "The Wacky Races"? Well, that's what this race was like, outlandish characters in super-hyped machines traversing unrealistic landscapes in an all-out fight to the finish line. The event occurred in the days of yellow journalism, when, as in this case, newspapers like the New York Times and Le Matin created the news rather than reported it. Think of it - driving across the United States in winter, up through Alaska, over the frozen Bering Sea, through Siberia and onto Western Europe. The plan was folly; the attempt was insanity. Yet six automobiles enetered, each hoping to wrestle as much marketing lightning out of it as possible. The stories, the personalities and the results are compelling, and the fact that no one has ever attempted the feat since is astonishing, when one considers the infrastructural improvements that have taken place since 1908. It was an unique event, deftly unfurled in this book.