The World’s Longest Auto Race


Around the World in 80 Days Motor Challenge

 

In 1908 a group of automotive pioneers set out on the grandest of adventures, and record setting exploits a 22 000 mile race around the world from New York City to Paris France in a machine that had only been invented 23 years earlier.  The race, envisioned by a Paris newspaper, was co-sponsored by the New York Times. So daunting was this undertaking that only four national teams in six cars mustered the courage to compete, USA, Germany, Italy, and France.  Even Henry Ford doubted it could be done.  He was half right as only three cars made it to the finish line.

 

Only 4 years earlier the 1350 mile race from NYC to St. Louis, Missouri took 18 days and saw 11 of the 77 cars drop out.  A year earlier the Paris to Peking race (route actually reversed) took the leader 60 days to complete, while the second place finisher came across the line three weeks later!  Nearly any length of race was an endurance race if it wasn’t on a race track, and the adversities faced were rigorous.  Racing around the globe was simply ludicrous.

To better understand the challenges, it should be kept in mind that there were no gasoline stations then, no dealerships stocked with parts, in fact really there were no roads.  The best you could hope for in most cases was a rutted wagon track.  Worse yet, since the 1908 race left NYC in February bound for Alaska that meant encountering snow.  As it turns out, a lot of snow.  Outside Chicago the teams met with six foot snow drifts that they fought with everything from shovels, to hauling the cars with teams of horses.  Eventually the American team took to the plowed railway tracks.  Progress was miserably slow, it took them 8 days to travel just 256 miles.  The original course had the contestants following dog sled routes and driving across the frozen Bering Strait to Russia.  However once in Alaska the leading US team knew immediately that plan would never play out.

 

Ours was the first car ever seen there, and the inhabitants welcomed us with a band and parade.  But the snow was so deep…and a sleigh ride of a few miles…convinced (us) of the impossibility of driving through Alaska.  Some drifts were higher than houses…

 

The organizers agreed and the route was amended.  The teams were rerouted to Seattle where a Steamship would take the cars to Russia where the worst was yet to come!

 

As great a tale as it is, this post is about a different race, though inspired by the 1908 New York to Paris race this one occurred nearly a hundred years later.

Upon picking the Fintail up at the shipping company for the first time, we were met with a few surprises.  While most of those will be saved for another time you can probably guess that they weren’t good surprises.  There was however one little surprise that was, the previous owner of the Fintail had stashed a copy of A Lap of the Globe in the glove compartment.  The subtitle “Behind the wheel of a Vintage Mercedes in the World’s Longest Auto Race” should explain the connection.  The book covers the Around the World in 80 Days Motor Challenge that took place in 2000. It was to be the first such race to entirely circumvent the globe returning to its starting point.  Despite a strong interest in endurance motoring, rally, and vintage Mercedes, the book sat on the back burner for over a year. Knowing the reality of these types of modern events is probably what turned me off reading the book.  Unlike the race of 1908 , today’s events are simply paid excursions for the ultra wealthy. With paved roads, gas stations every 20 miles, a sweep crew of mechanics, and luxury hotels awaiting your scheduled arrival, there is little romance and little to test the merit of man or machine.  The blue collar in me simply had no interest in reading about some rich…dudes playing make believe rally.

So what changed my mind?  Well the reading list is long and I needed to bang some off, and since the Fintail is in winter development mode, I thought maybe, just maybe the book might have some valuable tidbits buried within.  As it turns out, if a vague lead pans out, it just may result in something pretty great, more on that as it pans out.  Really though, what probably changed my mind was a brief moment of self realization.

 

While the greater Frontseat Driving family truly lives the middle class ethos we purport and while we are tentatively cautious of the monetization of the hobby, the truth is wealth is on a sliding scale and to many in this world, heck this country we ARE the wealthy.  While others are scraping by like little boys we are still playing cars, but with the real things.  What really knocked the chip of my shoulder was reflecting on our own experience this past driving season.  Sure enough we spent a fair amount of money to navigate our own cars for a three day ‘rally adventure’ followed by a sweep vehicle offering mechanical support and with (you guessed it) hotels and warm meals awaiting us. 

 

There is no question that we had an exceptionally fun time on that event.  And it was clear that that was the general consensus among the other attendees.   It was a great, and value filled weekend.  Like financial wealth let’s be honest, adventure is on a sliding scale. Breaking down on the side of a cold rainy, two lane, a thousand kilometers isn’t from home life changing.  But when it’s on a sparsely populated island, late on Sunday afternoon it is more than an inconvenience.  And when it means missing the last ferry to the mainland, well that straight up sucks.  While it might not compare to breaking down in the middle of the Sahara, or rolling down a cliff in Siberia, the chances are yours will be the story being told at the water cooler on Monday morning (if you make it to work).  So if we ARE ‘rich’ and we DID have an adventure, who am I to say the entrants of the Around the World in 80 Days event didn’t?  Perhaps it was time to open my mind – and the cover of the book.

The Around the World in 80 Days event started in London England, travelled through Europe by way of France, Italy, Greece, and into Asia via Turkey.  The rally was actually three races in one.  The first was London to Istanbul contested by 19 teams.  For those continuing on the route crossed Asia visiting Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and across the expanse of China.  For nearly half of the remaining contestants Beijing marked the finish line in the London to Beijing Rally, certainly an accomplishment in itself.  The remaining 40 contestants had chosen to circumvent the globe.  The cars continuing on, travelled by air to Alaska where the contestants picked up the race driving south across Canada via the Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta. Crossing the northern states back through Canada via Ontario to Niagara Falls, across the border into New York, and New Jersey where again the cars boarded a plane this time bound for Morocco.  The final leg of the rally returned to London via Spain and France.  The vehicles were restricted to 1968 and older and divided into pre and post war categories.  The oldest car to compete was a 1912 Locomobile, the oldest car to successfully circumvent the globe was a 1929 Bentley.  

 

Author Kevin Clemens presents an oddly candid account of the race that is both refreshing and at times awkward as he manages to insult fellow entrants, the organizer (Philip Young), and even his own navigator.  While the preface thanks and acknowledges the latter parties, he may have chosen to repeat those kinder words a few times throughout the narrative as confirmation.  It was at times hard to shake that uncomfortable feeling like you get when a couple starts arguing at a dinner party.  That said the opportunity to see the reality of organizational conflicts, and interpersonal challenges involved in such a long and arduous trek, is rare and welcomed.

 

Clemens begins the story of this grand event from even before his own involvement starting with its inception in the late 90s.  The reader is taken back in time to review the highlights of the rejuvenation of endurance rally sport driven by the three main promoters at the time. This was an interesting and informative aside that helped to illustrate the immensity of the organizational challenges.  While Clemens has little to say in favour of the man he does at least point out that while at the time no one in the industry thought he could successfully put together an event of such magnitude, if anyone could, it would have been Philip Young.  I found this behind-the-scenes coverage to be especially interesting.  In a surprising move Clemens goes on to describe the finances involved.

The first thing we learned was that we would need to have map books, and that they would cost $500.  It’s hard to imagine how you could put on a rally with a route book that provides the specific instructions to tell competitors where to go and how to get there, and then turn around and charge them for a set of the necessary maps, but there you are.  Next, we learned that a special service to obtain travel visas would be available for a fifty percent surcharge over the usual visa rates. Because you don’t want to be caught going int Azerbaijan with the wrong papers, there wasn’t much of a choice but to pay.  Then came the heaviest hit. The two airlifts would cost 5000 pounds sterling. Each. That meant an additional $16 000…A package of hotel rooms (which was mandatory) would be another $8000. Some reached for their checkbooks. Others nodded their heads in resignation.  I panicked quietly at my seat…The entry costs to be paid to the organizers now totaled more than $100 000.

 

The entry fees necessitated financial assistance and Clemens even details his search for sponsorship and how that influenced the make and model of car they raced.  In fact in the appendix he even shares how each sponsor contributed.  As an aside, considering only the contestants going the entire distance the promoter collected 4 million dollars!  Keep that in mind as you read about the hotels, and meals along the way.  The book proceeds to describe how Clemens found and settled on his navigator/co-driver and spends a great deal of time describing in detail how the car was modified.

While I really enjoyed the lead up to the race I began to wonder how the book was going to unfold given that at nearly a third of the way through the race hadn’t even started.  In some respects I think that concern was justified as the grand adventure was at times reduced to a whirlwind of country names with few details about these exotic locales.

 

Often that could be explained by the need to cover the teams frequent mechanical problems.  A number of times the team is faced with dropping out of the race only to squeak through often by sheer luck alone.  Not only was there a need to cover the details of these emergency repairs,  but in several cases I think Clemens himself may have missed some of what the countries had to offer as he was spending much of the time wrenching on the car.  Often though he sacrificed sightseeing in order to satiate his fierce competitive spirit by going over the car ‘one more time’.  While he explains that many approached the race as a grand tour, an adventure vacation, he approached it strictly as a competitive event only taking in the sites or slowing to share a meal with fellow entrants when absolutely nothing else needed being done.

 

I went to Walmart and bought a jumbo-sized package of adult diapers.  I felt a bit embarrassed about buying these and made loud comments in the checkout line about how they were for my grandfather.  The reality was , if Mark or I got a bad case of the runs the rally wouldn’t wait for us, and we would have to keep driving.

 

From what he shares of his fellow competitors and some of their car preparation, we can be fairly certain none of them packed diapers.  I found myself terribly curious what Mark Rinkel his navigator thought when he spotted those in the pile of gear.  Regardless it shows this was no vacation for Kevin.

All in all the book is a good and quick read, that I believe many fans of automobile racing, rally, touring, or even those like myself that live for the epic road trip will appreciate.  However I think too much of the book covers the technical and organizational preparation and too little of the details of the exotic lands visited to interest the reader simply looking for tales of world adventure and travel.

 

As I began this article with a snippet from the 1908 New York to Paris Race so does Clemens start his book.  He returns, delving into the details of the 1908 race several times as past circumstances often paralleled those of the 2001 event.  While I had some previous familiarity with the 1908 race the stories and photos were a welcome addition to this book not only as an effective literary device but the stories themselves often contained the drama and romance I felt lacking in his own adventure.  While Clemens and Rinkel certainly faced mechanical challenges that nearly ended their race several times, and suffered their own personal hardships, I found it difficult to compare to the gripping details of the great race of 1908.  To be fair, it’s tough to compete with stories of teammates drawing pistols and arguing about directions at gunpoint!  Clemens himself wrestled with the romance, the point of it all, and even the elitist nature of the event in his closing remarks.

 

From the outside it’s easy to be cynical about the whole endeavor, Who cares if a bunch of rich elitists drove their pretentious old cars around the world? …Was anyone saved? …it’s hard to see how driving across the (world) had much of a positive impact. 

 

In the modern world, we often have to invent our challenges as Philip Young had done with the Around the World in 80 Days event, but does that make the challenge any less romantic? …I’d wanted the romance, the excitement and adventure, but those things are at odds with the process of daily living.

 

I won’t give away how Clemens comes to terms with his internal conflict or how he ultimately found meaning in the event.  However I will say that his thoughts caused a second moment of personal clarity.  

 

I have often wondered why I get such a kick out of people pointing, staring, and smiling at my vehicles.  Mysteriously that feedback seems to be amplified (for drivers and bystanders both) when driving in a convoy of like minded enthusiasts.  It’s not the attention, it certainly isn’t status I seek (or I wouldn’t be driving old beaters), yet something is strangely gratifying about the exchange.  I think A Lap of the Globe helped me figure it out.  Those looks, those reactions are born of wonderment and incredulity.  It’s not about inspiring envy, it’s about inspiring someone to follow their dreams and to seek adventure regardless of how romantic, or irrational.  Even if the adventure is little more than riding on empty through an unknown countryside.  The thought that I might inspire someone to do the same makes me smile.

 

Repairing a W111 Mercedes Fintail Fuel Pump


Returning home to Frontseat Driving HQ in the daily driver, we were surprised to see a puddle under our Fintail Mercedes that had been sitting idle overnight.  The bigger surprise was that it turned out to be fuel not coolant.

It isn’t often a vehicle is generous enough to break down in the driveway.   Perhaps it was her way of thanking us for the fun, and doting she’s enjoyed so far.

Driving a vintage car can be a unique experience, maintaining one a challenge, and finding parts to repair one nearly impossible.  So far we’ve been shocked at the availability of parts for the Fintail.  In fact Mercedes Classics carries nearly every part we’ve inquired about – nearly every part.  

While our immediate assumption was that a line had ruptured it quickly became evident that the pump itself was leaking from the weep holes, a sure sign that the diaphragm was damaged.

In normal operation the fuel enters and leaves from the same side of the pump.  The holes worn through the diaphragm however were allowing the fuel to spill out the backside of the pump casing and out the weep holes and onto the hot engine clearly a dangerous situation.

The entire pump splits into three pieces.  The part circled in red remains bolted to the engine block.

The part circled in blue is still attached to the fuel lines and is left hanging in the engine bay.

The diaphragm that needs to be repaired is found but not shown in the section of the pump highlighted in yellow. 


Mercedes exploded diagram of the pump.


Weep holes on backside of pump body (yellow in above diagram).


Pump housing (yellow in above diagram) showing diaphragm.


A hole through both layers of the diaphragm proves to be the culprit.

Okay so the problem had been found, now came the time to find the replacement diaphragm.  Unfortunately unlike many fuel pump diaphragms our unit doesn’t disassemble any further than pictured, so the spring, seal, rod, and diaphragm must be replaced as an entire unit.  Not only is it not offered by Mercedes Classics, it doesn’t even appear on the exploded Mercedes fuel pump diagram.  

While a new replacement pump is available it isn’t cheap, and it’s shiny.  Ideally we want this car to retain as much of it’s dirty original parts and patina as possible. 

A couple years ago, before the Fintail was even purchased we came across a forum post claiming that Fiat part number 0009918453N was a suitable replacement and that factoid was filed away for future reference.  Going with that vague info, we found and ordered the part from C. Obert & Company in Santa Cruz, California.

The Fiat diaphragm is a more typical example of a replacement part in that it disassembles to it’s component parts which can be individually changed out.  That said, the Fiat part is by no means a suitable replacement as can be seen in the following photos.  


Here the similarities of the Fiat part, on the left are obvious.


Here the differences, again Fiat part on the left are obvious.


Length of the Mercedes pump rod vs…


…the Fiat pump rod.


Here the diameter of the Mercedes pump rod is compared to…


…the diameter of the Fiat pump rod.

Initially it occurred to us that perhaps with a bit of minor surgery we could adapt the Fiat pump rod to the Mercedes.  It quickly became clear that the required alterations would be much more than minor surgery.  For now the idea of altering the rod has been shelved while we investigate an easier approach.  

Our revised approach involves disassembling the Fiat part, and using the diaphragm material on the Fintail pump.  At this point you might be saying, “But wait, didn’t you say the Mercedes part didn’t disassemble?”

Yes we did.  


The Fiat diaphragm disassembled.


Socket used to carefully cut the diaphragm.


Fiat diaphragm with hole carefully cut.

While the diaphragm material looked to be about the same size and the bolt hole pattern the same, it really was tough to tell.  We took one of the layers of the Fiat diaphragm and using a hobby knife and an appropriate sized socket as a cutting guide we cut a hole in the material big enough for it to fit around the Mercedes’ spring.

Fitting the newly cut Fiat diaphragm over the spring and between the two layers of the Mercedes diaphragms it proved to be a near perfect match.

By now the secondary plan of attack is probably becoming clear.   While the new layer of diaphragm fit well, it alone wouldn’t be capable of preventing fuel from travelling to the other side of the pump because it isn’t sealed along the inner diameter.  The next step then was to try gluing the old diaphragm to the new diaphragm.  While the diaphragms looked like butyl rubber and smelled like it too, were they?  An experiment with a couple of scraps, seemed to confirm it.


Near perfect match.


Sticking together but will fuel dissolve the glue?

The result, as suspected that the glue did not hold up to the effects of gasoline.  Tomorrow, we will try a glue known to be gasoline resistant.  We will update this post as soon as we have results.  Rather than wait to post this blog entry until the project was completed (successfully or not) we thought we’d publish it now to solicit some input.  Perhaps with the above details you might imagine a good approach.  Maybe you have repaired one yourself, or better yet you have a lead on a replacement.  Feel free to comment below with any ideas, or questions, and stay tuned for the update!

 


This cement is fuel resistant, and currently curing.


Both surfaces were scored.


Glued and clamped

After a couple days of glue, clamp, and repeat the finicky job of gluing the two diaphragms together was complete.   It looks promising folks!  That said, we have a new mechanical pump in transit.  While we aren’t thrilled with the replacement (more on that when it shows up) we found it much cheaper than that we first sourced.  If nothing else the replacement will serve as good research. 

 

Time now to reassemble the OEM pump;  

 

  • the spring plate slips into the actuator lever.
  • the open spring end fits over a post in the pump body.
  • the pump seal is fit into place on the pump body.
  • the spring is compressed while the pump rod is extended.
  • the rod mates to the actuator simultaneously. 

 


From left to right the parts are assembled.


The yellow circle shows the placement of the spring.


In the center of the pump the fork of the actuator lever is visible.


This shows how the diaphragm rod mates to the actuator fork.

So our repair worked!  For a week.  While we would have liked to continue the experimenting with glues our schedule of events was just to busy to continue.  By the time the repair failed we already had the replacement pump in hand.

As mentioned we resisted replacing the pump as we really would prefer to repair or renew old parts rather than simply replacing them with new.  Not only was a new pump against our philosophy, strictly speaking it wasn’t a direct replacement with the OEM part.  Yes it worked, and was nearly a bolt on replacement but it clearly was of a newer design.  The new pump is still non-rebuildable as it doesn’t even disassemble. 


Visually the replacement pump design is different enough that it was only with the full assurance of Mercedes Classics that we ordered it.  The new pump does away with the intermediate mount as seen in the exploded diagram above circled in red and numbered ’60’.  The new pump bolts directly to the engine block thus the plunger of the diaphragm is activated directly without the rocker mechanism seen highlighted in yellow and numbered ’20’.  The following photo shows the significant differences.   


As mentioned the new pump is ‘nearly’ a bolt on replacement.  The pump base seen below shiny and still attached to the engine block needs to be removed along with the rod, which is a straight forward task.  


Additionally the new pump doesn’t use a threaded fitting for the pressure line as seen below.  A few options are available here.  The entire line can be replaced which means significantly altering the look of the engine and requires finding the appropriate hardware to mate back up to the Zeniths.  This option was deemed as too much trouble and sacrifice for us.  Another option would be to cut the line at the end nearest the pump.   Not a bad option but we wanted a flared end for safety.  Likely the line could have been flared easily enough however we thought we could skip a step, and we were right.  We cut the OEM captured threaded fitting off of the line itself, leaving behind the factory flare.




After that, it was truly simply a matter of bolting the new pump, still using the original bolts, directly to the engine block.  The new pump has been working flawlessly for many, many thousands of miles since.  

As always if you have any comments leave them below.  We are still searching for the correct diaphragm replacement, if for no other reason than to have a spare pump on hand.  If you have any leads we’d appreciate hearing about them.


The F-Bomb Studio Presents


Adding a Fire Extinguisher and Driving Lights to the Mercedes Fintail

You have entered the F-Bomb Studio, where the craftsmanship applies as much to unique combinations of curses, as it does the cars we work on.  We recommend all children and sensitive types don ear protection until work completion.

Truthfully there wasn’t a lot of swearing on this small collection of projects, some very straight forward brackets to mount a fire extinguisher and driving lights to a Mercedes Fintail.

The Mercedes W111 Fintails have a rich history in Rally competition especially going back to the early 60s. The intention with this car was always to present it as a survivor car of some local rally competitor that modeled their car after those of the big boys in Europe that they read about in “Canada Track & Traffic”.  Probably some proud owner with one car, that drove it to work during the week and flogged it in competition on the weekends.  Perhaps it was retired when, finally it just wasn’t competitive any longer, or perhaps a new addition to the family showed up and racing weekends just weren’t practical any longer.  Either way our story sees the car relegated to more pedestrian use maybe even right up to the point that the ‘new addition’ inherited it as their first car on their 16th birthday.  Eventually as happens the car is finally carefully stored away in the garage, left to slumber until we stumbled upon it decades later.

“Fintails have a rich history in rally competition especially going back to the early 60s.”

The car itself is pretty solid, and running well, so most of the effort is being directed at adding period rally equipment that will still be functional and serve our modern campaigning needs.

While we invested grueling months researching the actual competition cars and searching for the correct vintage equipment, the actual garage time is thankfully, pretty simple and rewarding. 

We searched long and hard for the right car when shopping for the Fintail, and an important trait of this particular car is its solid but bumped and bruised appearance adding to that aura of a life of competition. With that in mind the last thing we want is to bolt on a bunch of fresh shiny parts.

 

While authentic vintage fire extinguishers can be found easily enough, no respectable shop will refill them as their safety expiry will have long passed.  While we could have opted for a vintage extinguisher for the car shows, and a modern one for regular use, the thought of suffering a fire with the wrong extinguisher at hand was sobering. Instead we opted for an extinguisher with a vintage chrome appearance and modern effectiveness.  The extinguisher and extinguishing agent were carefully chosen but we will cover that in detail at another time.  With the extinguisher finally chosen the next task was mounting it securely.

 

 

 

The transmission tunnel was chosen as a mounting location for it’s accessibility to both driver and co-driver alike.   Using the seat belt attachment points rather than drilling new holes was a no-brainer.

First a cardboard mock up was made to accurately locate the seatbelt threads, and bracket holes, then it was transferred to aluminum sheet.

Cardboard, especially press board like that cereal boxes are made of is a great tool for templates.  The cardboard is stiff enough to keep shape but unlike the corrugated version, bends easily, and cut edges are clean and accurate.

Some templates for projects coming soon to the F-Bomb Studio

A large washer was used to form a radius on the ends both to protect the carpet, and for a cleaner appearance.  The aluminium was cut with a fine blade jig saw, and cleaned up with a drum sander on a die grinder.  

A step drill makes drilling various sizes quick and simple

While simple rivets connect the mounting strap to the extinguisher mount, we felt that the connection needed to be more secure for occupant safety so the strap was placed over the bracket.  While this is perhaps less attractive it is hidden once the extinguisher is in place, regardless function first on a ‘race’ car.

The stickers were peeled off the extinguisher as they were too painfully modern.  They may even be replaced by faux vintage stickers at a later date.  Both the extinguisher and the bracket were subjected to some forced weathering – a close look at the bracket will reveal some peeling paint and rust on it despite being brand new. Efforts to dull the bright white strap ends are planned, or they may be replaced altogether.

 

No vintage rally car is complete without some auxiliary driving lights.

For the Finnie we went with some vintage well used Cibie Super Oscars that were sourced after lengthy research.  Finding these locally, already with a convincing patina helped the decision making. As a big plus they were sold as a set of 4, so we have spares if needed (every minute the car sits in a parking lot is sheer anguish).  

As we did with the extinguisher mount, we wanted to avoid drilling any holes to mount these lights.  Using the existing bumper mounts was a no brainer here however a cardboard template had serious limitations. As such the first one made was truly a test run.

A chop saw was used to cut four lengths of steel.  Each was cut the same length for simplicity, and if a mistake was made at any point, the bracket could be flipped in hopes of salvaging the bracket.

Like we did for the extinguisher mount, a large washer was used to mark a radius – a curved end just makes for a cleaner look.   The radius was rough cut with an angle grinder and finished with a flappy wheel replacing the cutting disk.  

A couple of quick beads, and flat stock becomes a bracket.

Again with redundancy in mind each piece was rounded even though one end is hidden from view when installed.  We have been known to make mistakes…there IS after all a reason the garage is called  the        F-Bomb Studio.

 

 

Granted adding some very straight forward brackets to mount a fire extinguisher and driving lights to a Mercedes Fintail is by no means a big project , but with safety AND appearance covered, it is one with a big impact.

Here the large 7 inch driving lights can be seen in place but still awaiting support rods, and wiring.  Stay tuned to the F-Bomb Studio for more on that project.

 

© Daimler AG.

The global copyright remains the property of Daimler AG.

I want to thank Daimler AG for making the historic photos available to all enthusiasts, visit their archives for some spectacular views into their competitive past.