Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACING MOTOR CAR. 325 that the next great event was the Paris-Amster- dam-Paris race of 1898. This was the first of the inter-country contests, Amsterdam- ““ “ SOme WayS was consid- Paris, 1898. ered as much a demonstration as a race. The most import- ant innovation introduced was wheel-steer- ing in place of the old and dangerous lever, which had been a fruitful source of accidents. Charron had a four-cylinder motor of eight horse-power (but balanced, and therefore an improvement on Mayade’s) on his car, and also used pneumatic tyres and a radiator of gilled tubing slung at the back of the car. His speed showed a considerable advance on previous records, being about Tour de , France, 1899 27 miles an hour over the 890 miles. This average was only slightly increased in the Tour de France, the great race all the way round France—1,350 miles—which was the chief event of 1899, though the winner, the Chev. Réné de Knyff, was driving a car of 16 horse-power. It was during this contest that Charron drove for 25 miles backwards, after breaking a part of the machinery which prevented him proceeding in any other manner—a performance which is said to have much astonished the spectators he met on the road. By this time the racing car was becoming a machine quite distinct from the touring car. The old saying, “ The racing car of one year is the touring car of the next ” BenneH0Racne’ he’d g°°d Until ab°Ut 1904’ 1900. and many an old racer has finished its life with a big ton- neau instead of the two-seated body. But the speeds needed for successful racing were now so high that the machines used in the contests were of quite another build from their con- temporaries which had a less exciting pur- pose. Early in 1900, Levegh accomplished an average of 511 miles an hour between Bordeaux and Perigueux. None of the com- petitors in the first Gordon-Bennett race CHARRON ON ONE OF THE 12 HORSE-POWER PANHARDS OF 1899. These cars were the first with the radiator in front of the bonnet. approached this speed, Charron, the winner, recording 38|. This, the first of the great inter- national contests, was somewhat of a fiasco. France, Belgium, and America competed, the first-named with three champions, and the others with one each. The winner had at one time given up altogether, but finding that all the others were out of it except one, and that one a long way behind, he took heart again, and finished, though nearly placed hors de com- bat at the last moment by a large St. Bernard dog. Racing-car construction was now advancing by leaps and bounds, and Fournier’s Mors, on which he averaged 53 miles an hour from Paris to Bordeaux, was a machine very different from the Mors Weight of 1899. A month afterwards limitation. Fournier repeated his success in the Paris- Berlin race, which, was a duel between the Mors and the Panhard. Both these types were very heavy, and the authorities began to realize that the effect of allowing a free hand to the designers was bad, as they merely produced heavier vehicles each year. So for 1902 it was decided to restrict all cars to ],000 kilos (or 2,204 lbs.). This led to a great improvement of the design, as the designers were compelled to find the solution of a problem which re- quired the combination of the utmost speed with the greatest reliability for this given weight. It was at first thought that the result