Day 169 – July 30, 1908 – Paris, the City of Light!
We left Berlin at noon on July 27, knowing that the German Protos had arrived in Paris the day prior. We had been told by Lt. Koeppen’s father, a white haired retired German army Colonel and others who had greeted us earlier in the day. Lt. Koeppen of the German Protos recounted his final miles. “Proud palaces of the French aristocracy and the Belgian industrialists shine from the tops, splendid gardens caress us with the tender fragrances of flowers, rich villages and flaming forges boarder the river which hurriedly wreathes itself through the mountains, while church bells ring to morning mass…”
At one point the Germans are told of a passing of another car one half hour ahead of them with the inscription “New York-Paris”, could this be the Americans?? “We believe nothing else than that our worst fears had become really true, and rushed forward as if it was a matter of snatching away a few souls from the devil!” They soon caught up with the source of their fear. It turned out to be friends with an accompanying German automobile.
Koeppen continued to expect a failure at any moment as they approached the City of Paris, but nothing happened. The Dunlop tires mounted in Berlin stayed the course and the 4 cylinder 60 HP engine remained steady. The streets of Paris were crowded with people, who came running to the Protos with the unexpected spectacle of their arrival.
Koeppen remembers, “At half past 6 in the evening we stopped in front of the building of the “Matin” (the Parisian newspaper which co-sponsor of the Race) in the Rue des Poissonnieres. We had made it, we were there!”
From our American perspective, the Protos would have to win by 30 days so we knew (barring a catastrophe), victory would be ours! We drove the Flyer on to Hanover and as it was late, we decided to stop over for the night.
The next day, the Flyer was rolling along a perfectly smooth road when we noticed that the car’s speed was not in accord with the engine’s speed, and the car gradually coasted to a stop. We tried to drive to the roadside; the motor was running, but it would not pull the car. So we dismounted and pushed the car to the side of the road. We looked for the trouble, and found the clutch was rotating freely on the clutch-shaft, as the corners of the squared clutch-shaft had worn away. When in Moscow we made a repair to the clutch, and we had noticed the wear at this, point but had never anticipated total failure. We also had keyed and pined the various parts of the assembly to hold permanently, and we had not thought of our having to take it apart again. The disassembly took hours of time, and I then hand carried its thirty pounds of weight to a railway station three miles distant.
There seemed to be a scarcity of horses here – peasants were driving dogs harnessed to wagons, and there was apparently very little traffic. I purchased a ticket to Hanover from the railway stationmaster. While we were conversing I told him our mishap, and he remarked that there was a machine shop close by where possibly the necessary work could be done. I hurried there, and the owner assured me he could make the repair. To make a new shaft would require special material which was not available, so we improvised and after three hours of machine work completed the repair. I returned to the disabled Flyer and once again we were rolling toward Paris.
The skies cleared, we encountered good roads, troops marching somewhere, cavalry mounted on spirited horses – the men in resplendent uniforms, military bands playing while on the march – this was Germany! Growing fields, forests clear of all underbrush, everything tidy.
About the same time, the Italian Zust is trailing, and well back of us. They were still in Siberia, stalled at Omsk. Antonio Scarfoglio aboard the Zust recounts, “We are held up at Omsk with all our springs broken, and held up – which is worse – in a Siberian hotel.” The hotel bill came to 30 roubles, which you pay without asking any questions:
Boot-cleaning for three days R.1.80 One sheet of fly-paper .80
Without insisting upon anything in terror lest you see at the bottom of the list “For various alms to the poor in the town in the name of your excellency, R.30” At one point the two Italians aboard the Zust found themselves nearly arrested for espionage. The Russian Cossacks thought they were foreign spies, adding to their string of misfortunes.
The Thomas crossed the boarder into the Belgium frontier and then into France. We drove on to Rheims, with our route running by the famous cathedral there; then past Chateau-Thierry and on over miles of cobble paved road. We were near Paris which could not be more than a dozen miles on. We would win the race by a big margin. Strangely, we were not joyful, but rather we were content. Perhaps our car, if it had the faculty of thought, would agree that we all had carried on – we had done our duty to those whom we represented. No honor or reward was greater than that conviction.
Finally we came to the gates of Paris. A gasoline tax halted us! Luckily, our gasoline tanks were nearly empty, so it amounted to only a few francs and centimes. However, as we paused for collection of the tax a nearby Parisian Gendarme (police) walked over and slowly circled the Flyer. When he came to the front, he stopped focusing on our left headlight. He then raised his head, turned in my direction and stated “no entrée ”. I asked why, and he reported that no automobile was allowed in Paris without two operating headlights. Now that carbide headlight had been broken since an unfortunate pigeon struck it just outside of Moscow, and we were now standing in a Parisian boulevard in the middle of the afternoon! I explained to him that we had come 22,000 miles in the last 169 days, with the finish line a few meters away. His response in a bureaucratic tone, “no entrée”.
I controlled my rage, and a Parisian bicyclist overhearing our plight stepped forward from the crowd. “Messieurs, you can use the lamp on my cycle to meet the requirement”. I grabbed my wrench and quickly tried to remove it, but could not do so without damaging his cycle. So we hoisted the lamp with its attached bicycle on the Flyer. The Gendarme gave me a quizzical look, then nodded and announced “entrer”. The Thomas Flyer entered Paris the “City of Light”, crossing the finish line with a bicycle on its hood! The boulevard was packed with thousands of enthusiastic Parisians cheering “Vive la voiture Américaine!”. A reception – champagne – and more champagne! Entertainment! Then we drove to the office of Le Matin. We arrived there at six o’clock on July 30th and the longest automobile race in history was officially over for us. We just wanted sleep – and drove on to the hotel. The report of the committee was that we had won the race by twenty-six days!
Starting on February 12 at Times Square in New York, many including our own company President, E.R. Thomas thought none of the competitors would get past Chicago. No one had ever done it, and Paris… in the dead of winter… that was absurd! The Thomas Flyer became the first automobile to ever cross the United States in the winter, and I had become the first person to accomplish that feat by automobile in an amazing 42 days.
Arriving in Paris , we had covered the approximate 22,000 miles in 169 days (loosing one to the calendar count when we crossed the International dateline). Our total run time was 88 days, with a daily average of 152 miles per day. Our longest days run was 420 miles, with 13,341 miles on land under our own power. We covered 2,385 more land miles and 3,246 more water miles than our nearest competitor the German Protos.
We had little notion of the impact this victory would have, not only on the automobile but on worldwide transportation. We began to get a sense of things to come when we returned to a hero’s welcome in the United States…
*About the author: The above is written in the first person as Jeff Mahl heard the recollections from his Great Grandfather, George N. Schuster, winner of the 1908 New York to Paris Race. Jeff is seated to the left of “Great Gramp” holding the 45 star US flag which flew from the Flyer, with his brother Matt and sister Jenny.
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