It sounds like a fever dream. Imagine trying to drive across the entire world in an era when most people still hadn't seen a lightbulb, let alone a paved road. In February 1908, six cars lined up in Times Square. Their goal? To reach Paris. But they weren't taking a boat across the Atlantic. They were heading west. Across the United States, up through Alaska, over a frozen Bering Strait, and across the vast, empty tundra of Siberia. The 1908 New York to Paris Race was less of a sporting event and more of a collective survival crisis that happened to involve internal combustion engines.
The world was different then. Gasoline wasn't sold at stations; you bought it in five-gallon cans at general stores or pharmacies, assuming they had any. There were no GPS units. No paved highways. In most of the American West, "roads" were just muddy ruts carved by wagon wheels. If you broke an axle in the middle of Wyoming, you didn't call AAA. You found a blacksmith and hoped he knew how to work with tempered steel.
The Impossible Route of the 1908 New York to Paris Race
The organizers were, quite frankly, delusional. The original plan involved driving across the frozen Bering Strait. They actually thought the ice would be thick enough to support a two-ton Thomas Flyer or a De Dion-Bouton. It wasn't. Even before they got there, the teams had to survive a brutal American winter.
The American entry, the Thomas Flyer, was led by George Schuster. He wasn't even supposed to be the lead driver originally, but he ended up being the soul of the team. They were competing against the best of Europe: three French cars (De Dion-Bouton, Motobloc, and Sizaire-Naudin), one Italian (Züst), and one German (Protos). The German team was led by Hans Koeppen, a man so determined he eventually got his car stuck in a snowdrift so deep it took a team of horses and several days to dig it out.
The Sizaire-Naudin didn't even make it out of New York State. It broke down near Red Hook after only 44 miles. That’s the reality of 1908 engineering. One down, five to go.
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Mud, Snow, and Human Endurance
By the time the remaining cars hit Indiana and Illinois, the "race" had turned into a slow-motion crawl through a swamp. The cars were constantly sinking to their hubs. The crews would spend ten hours moving five miles. They used "deadman" anchors—burying a log in the ground and using a winch to pull the car forward inch by inch. Honestly, it’s a miracle anyone stayed sane.
The Thomas Flyer reached San Francisco in 41 days. That was a record. It was the first time a car had crossed the US in winter. But the real nightmare was just starting. The plan to drive to Alaska via boat and then across the ice was quickly abandoned because, well, Alaska didn't have roads. At all. The organizers realized the Bering Strait was a death trap of moving ice floes. So, the cars were shipped across the Pacific to Japan and then to Vladivostok, Russia.
Why the Protos and the Thomas Flyer Almost Caused an International Incident
The German Protos team, led by Koeppen, took a shortcut. They put their car on a train for part of the journey across the United States because it was hopelessly broken and they were falling too far behind. The race committee wasn't thrilled. They penalized the Germans 15 days. Meanwhile, the Thomas Flyer team had wasted weeks sailing to Alaska and back because they followed the original rules. To compensate, the committee gave the Americans a 15-day credit.
This created a weird mathematical gap.
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When they finally hit the brutal mud of the Russian Steppe, the race became a grueling battle of attrition. The Italian Züst crew was surviving on local hospitality and sheer luck. The French De Dion-Bouton dropped out in Russia because they couldn't find fuel.
Siberia in 1908 was a lawless frontier. The drivers dealt with packs of wolves, Manchurian bandits, and "Rasputitsa"—the season of melting snow that turns the earth into a bottomless pit of muck. Sometimes they drove on the Trans-Siberian Railway tracks just to stay out of the mud. This was incredibly dangerous. If a train came, they had to bounce the car off the tracks or face a head-on collision. George Schuster later wrote about the jarring vibration of driving over railroad ties for hundreds of miles. It literally shook the teeth in their heads.
The Race to the Finish Line
The German Protos reached Paris first, on July 26, 1908. But because of the 30-day total time adjustment (the penalty plus the American credit), they hadn't actually won. The Thomas Flyer rolled into Paris four days later, on July 30.
A massive crowd gathered. But there was a problem. A policeman stopped the Thomas Flyer because it had a broken headlight, and French law required two working lights. A bystander famously leaned a bicycle against the car so its lamp could count as the second light. Only then was the American team allowed to finish.
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George Schuster and his team had covered over 22,000 miles. They won.
What This Race Actually Proved About Technology
We tend to look back at these events as quirky historical footnotes. But the 1908 New York to Paris Race changed everything. It proved the automobile wasn't just a "rich man's toy" for Sunday drives in the park. It was a machine capable of conquering continents.
- Durability over speed: The Thomas Flyer didn't win because it was the fastest. It won because it was the most repairable and the crew was the most resourceful.
- Infrastructure necessity: The race highlighted the desperate need for a transcontinental highway system. Within a few decades, the Lincoln Highway would begin to take shape.
- Global Branding: The win boosted the American auto industry's reputation overnight. Suddenly, "Made in America" meant something in the world of engineering.
The Thomas Flyer used for the race is still around. You can see it at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. It’s still covered in the grime and dents of that 169-day journey. It looks tired. It looks like it’s seen things no machine should have to see.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Travelers
If you're fascinated by this era, you don't have to just read about it. There are ways to connect with this history today:
- Visit the Source: Go to the National Automobile Museum in Reno. Seeing the Thomas Flyer in person is different than seeing photos. You realize how high those seats are and how exposed the drivers were to the elements.
- Trace the Route: While you can't drive the exact 1908 path (many "roads" are now private property or gone), you can drive sections of the old Lincoln Highway or Route 66 to get a feel for the scale of the American leg.
- Read the First-Hand Account: Find a copy of The Longest Auto Race by George Schuster. It’s his personal account of the journey. It's gritty, unpolished, and far more harrowing than the sanitized versions of the story often found in textbooks.
- Research the "Great Race" (1965): If you want a fun, fictionalized take, watch the movie The Great Race starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. It’s loosely—very loosely—inspired by the 1908 event. Just don't expect it to be historically accurate.
The 1908 race remains a testament to a specific kind of early 20th-century madness. It was a time when the world felt both massive and, for the first time, conquerable. The men who drove those cars weren't just racers; they were explorers who traded horses for cylinders and changed the way we move forever.