| Austin
7 - 2007 Peking To Paris |
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| Peking to Paris Austin 7 Marathon Adventure
Completed! |
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The
750 Motor Club is delighted to announce the successful
completion of their
re-run of the
1907 ‘Peking to Paris’ by our intrepid
adventurers, Vince Leek, Stan Price and Chris
Parkhurst and their navigators, Johnny Johnson
and Steve Briggs. Congratulations to them all – not
forgetting their ‘dependable’ Austin
Sevens. What a way to mark their 85th anniversary!
Basic statistics are; over 7,700 miles in 42
days, leaving Beijing on the 10th of June and
reaching Paris on the 21st of July. Vince said
that fuel was only about 28p a litre until they
got to Europe and food costs about half that
of Europe. He also said that the scenery in Russia
comprised little more than vast fields of wheat
or miles of pine forests. The only car problems
of note were a holed radiator bottom tank and
worn dynamo brush in Stan’s car. Vince
also suffered from a split top radiator tank.
All cars suffered from ‘settled’ road.
springs and bodywork distortion as a result of
the bad roads and pot holes. Vince said that
his body had dropped so much that the bottom
of the door fouled the running boards. Hopefully
there will be the full story in the 750 Bulletin
when they have caught up with domestic chores.
(Vince had one unforeseen problem to deal with – his
workshop having been broken into while he was
away and his ‘mig’ welding equipment
stolen).
The
two VSCC Chummies also completed the, slightly
shorter, run recording 7500miles.
They left about
4 weeks before ‘our’ party and arrived
in Paris 45 days later - on the 30th June. The
two cars went by different routes for much of the
journey. One had distributor problems early on
and transmission noises, caused by sand in the
carden joint, necessitating a new set of blocks
to be made up in a local w/shop. The other’s
most serious problem, apart from bodywork, was
the high consumption of back axle oil in the last
few hundred miles!
Finally
the only Austin, a 1948 16hp driven by John Vincent,
on the ‘big one’ (organised
by the Endurance Rally Assn.) managed to finish
the event after having broken rear springs repaired
locally. That event took 35 days and their web
reporter spoke of 10,000 miles!
These too also deserve our hearty congratulations.
Ken Cooke
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