Concerned about weight, many are mailing back heavy boxes of lotions and unnecessary trinkets. Ninety years of progress and pavement technology may not make this trek from Peking to Paris much less formidable than it was in 1907. Deeming the first rally's course through the Gobi desert a trifle dull, rally organizer Philip Young has devised a 15-day first leg from Peking to Katmandu that could halve the field before it reaches India. After following the Great Wall west through China and crossing the vast grasslands of Inner Mongolia, the motorists will begin an arduous 17,000-feet ascent to the Tibetan plateau where they will drive on the world's highest road. And, if the Chinese have cleared away the rubble from a recent landslide on the pass from Tibet to Nepal, the drivers can expect to ford 10 to 14 rivers soon after.
Police direct the classic cars through Beijing.
They will tackle the tortuous Acropolis country of Thessalonika, Greece, take a brief ferry trip across the Aegean to Ancona, Italy, and twist around 48 hairpins in the Italian Alps. The final stretch will be a dash through Germany's Rhone Valley and down into France. The drivers will rely entirely on maps and guidebooks to navigate. Rally planners have provided route notes, which describe landmarks throughout each day. However, organizer Young assured the navigators that the notes are not reliable and the route is likely to change.