Thank Frankel It's Friday – The Mad Motorists

It came from a tweet of his, informing his followers that the 10^th August marked the 109^th anniversary of Prince Scipione Borghese driving his Itala into Paris, to claim victory in the first Peking-Paris road race. In an instant I was sent scurrying for the bookshelves, looking for one of the most wonderful motoring books ever written about which, and for reasons that remain inexplicable, I had entirely forgotten.

“The Mad Motorists’ was written by Allen Andrews, a man about whom I know absolutely nothing. It was published in 1964 and, unlike other tales of this most extraordinary feat of human endurance, ingenuity and courage, he didn’t focus on the winner at all.

Indeed Andrews seems to have taken somewhat against Borghese, presumably because he broke an agreement between teams to stick together in this potentially lethal competition and assist each other until the German border and simply shoved off in his purpose-built, super powerful Itala at the first available opportunity.

Instead he chose to write about a man who didn’t even finish the race, a con-man and a criminal who lied and cheated his way into the event before going on to prove that, despite it all, he possessed the heart and soul of a true hero.

His name was Charles Godard, a man with a fox-like face and the cunning to match. He was entered for the race with four other crews – Borghese in his Itala, two De Dions and one team almost unbelievably on a thing called a Contal – essential a 7hp motorcycle and sidecar where the passenger sat in a chair in front of the driver. Godard was to drive a Metallurgique, but when the manufacturer withdrew, he spent his winnings as a Wall of Death rider on a trip to Amsterdam where he persuaded Spyker to lend him a car, plus all the spares he could carry and the entry fee, repayable on arrival in Peking. In fact Godard had no intention of doing anything of the sort and flogged the spares to buy himself the boat ticket.

I could now recount the tale of his journey across China, Mongolia, Russia and into Europe but I rather fear I’d spoil the book for you. Suffice it to say that running out of fuel in the middle of the desert and having to drink the water in the car’s radiator to survive was one of the more minor problems he faced. Later in the race he had to travel 3,000 miles just to get back to where he had started. This in 1907. During he race he was arrested, escaped, sentenced to 18 months in prison in absentia and repaired the Spyker’s back axle using a wad of bacon.

I bought my copy of The Mad Motorists 20 years ago and devoured it in a single sitting. I probably read it once every other year for the next decade. But then I forgot about it until Henry’s tweet. But I couldn’t find my book. We’ve moved house in the last 10 years and it may have gone missing then or simply be at the bottom of some long forgotten box in the attic.

This really worried me because I could remember what a struggle it had been to find one back in the 1990s. But, thanks to the wonders of the internet, it was just a few keystrokes and two days away. Indeed I could have paid as little as four pounds for a slightly moth-eaten copy from a vendor I didn’t recognise, but ended up splurging a positively profligate seven quid to get an immaculate copy from Hay-On-Wye Booksellers. And it’s wonderful, as good a read now as ever.

Those of us who love cars are unusually blessed by great books, but the truth is The Mad Motorists isn’t really a car book at all: its stars are the Gobi Desert, the Russian Steppes and in Charles Godard – an anti-hero so colourful and full of contrasts he would have to be invented had he not already existed. The cars are merely their props. And now you can read about his exploits for the rest of your life for not much more than the price of pint of lager in a posh London pub. And I know which sounds like better value to me.