Peking to Paris

Coffs Harbour 4WD Centre is owned and managed by Anthony Eden. Anthony was the mechanic on the great Peking to Paris race held in 2005. For more information on the race visit the ABC TV Peking to Paris website.

All pictures on this page are copyright Bob Barker and are reproduced with his permission.

Peking to Paris - A Mechanic's Perspective

Peking to Paris was one of those adventures you can’t knock back if offered the opportunity. The expedition involved driving four 100 year old veteran cars and one replica from Peking, China to Paris, France covering just over 16000km in 61 days. Travelling through and across all sorts of terrain from narrow houton streets in China, vast spaces and rough roads of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, through the even rougher and muddy roads of Siberia and Russia. Not to mention the congested streets in Berlin and the fast paced traffic in Paris.

The cars themselves did remarkably well considering the distances we were covering each day. The daily routine of oiling the oily parts and tightening parts that the cars shake off themselves was critical. Problems suffered by just about all five cars were mainly related to suspensions breaking, magneto or ignition system failures, and drive line breakages. Oh, not to forget the odd flat tyre or ten.

I was expecting to have to rebuild motors on the side of Lithuanian highways but all that was needed motor wise was a bit of a valve lap about halfway through the trip. The most major break down was when the gearbox on the yellow De Dion tore itself from the undercarriage and dragged the car to a stop. A local Russian mechanic just happened to be passing at the time and lent us his pit and helped us fix the gearbox mount. Mechanics the world over speak the same language. Grunts and gestures had us working and laughing together like we spoke the same language and had been working in the same workshop together for years.

I think the other reason the cars made it to Paris besides daily maintenance and checks, was that we tackled each problem as it came. It kept us moving forward even though at times you would feel like you’d hit an insurmountable obstacle. There were days when 2 or 3 of the cars broke down spread 40 or 50 km apart. Those were even longer days!

The people I met and the tastes, sites and smells of the expedition will remain with me forever as will the experiences learnt in the field of hard knocks.

-- Ant

Some more pictures of the expedition: