ASTANA — Seventy classic vintage cars arrived in Kazakhstan on June 2 as part of the legendary Beijing-Paris Classic Car Rally, reported Tengri Auto.
Photo credit: Tengri Auto
On May 18, the brave riders left Beijing, crossed the vast expanses through Urumqi and reached Almaty.
Their route passes through Kyzylorda and Aktau, where they will take a ferry to Baku. Then, on June 23, they plan to reach Europe and their final destination, Paris.
According to Wikipedia, the Beijing-Paris is an automobile race, initially held in 1907, between Peking (now Beijing), then Qing China (now the People’s Republic of China) and Paris, France (then French Third Republic), a distance of 14,994 kilometers.
The idea for the race came from a challenge published in the Paris newspaper Le Matin on Jan. 31, 1907, reading: “What needs to be proved today is that as long as a man has a car, he can do anything and go anywhere. Is there anyone who will undertake to travel this summer from Paris to Peking by automobile?”
