Scalextric Volkswagen Beetle 1959 Car, 1:32 Scale
This well-known Beetle, prepared to mirror the car from the 64 Spa-Liege rally, was entered in the Peking-Paris rally in 2007 by artist Matthew Keeler. 100 years before, the famous Peking to Paris Rally began with the briefest of appeals in a newspaper: "Will anyone agree to go, this summer, from Peking to Paris by motor car?" Le Matin asked in 1907. The challenge was eventually taken up by five teams including an Italian nobleman, a dastardly con man and a journalist from The Daily Telegraph. Crossing 12,000 miles of the most inhospitable terrain, without maps, all but one team made it to the finishing line. Now, a century after that historic race pushed cars and their owners to the limit, the rally was re-run in 2007. Among 134 vintage cars that departed from the Great Wall of China were some of the same models that competed in the first race in 1907, with top speeds of just 35mph. Matthew and John Keeler of Reading, Berkshire, UK entered a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle which was prepared with a twin air cleaner in light of the Gobi desert conditions that they will be facing and uprated suspension and modifications based on the East Africa Safari Rally VW's of the 60's, along with knowledge gained from other Classic Car Rallies and Trials set-up on Beetles. The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003. With over 21 million manufactured in an air-cooled, rear engine, rear-wheel drive configuration, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured automobile of a single design platform anywhere in the world.