In 1907, a tiny gauntlet, not much bigger than a postage stamp, was thrown down on the pages of the French newspaper, Le Matin: “Is there anyone who will undertake to travel this summer from Peking to Paris by automobile?”

This single, terse sentence contained a sizable challenge, and one that only a fool or a madman was likely to accept. At the turn of the century, automobiles were primitive and temperamental contraptions, roads were nonexistent, and drivers were daring but inexperienced hobbyists. Traveling halfway across the world by motorcar was universally acknowledged to be an impossible feat.

However, fools and madmen happened to be in abundant supply, and there was no shortage of candidates eager to take the wheel and test their mettle. Twenty-five participants signed up for rally, although only five made it to the starting line, outside the French consulate in Peking, on June 10, 1907.

What a sight they must have been! Among their number was a flamboyant Italian prince astride a sleek Itala automobile with vast mud flaps like airplane wings jutting out front and back. Next, behind the wheel of a Spyker boldly painted in the French national colours was a notorious con-man and former carnival worker who had begged, borrowed, wheedled and cajoled a spot for himself in the race. A third intrepid participant perched on a spindly three-wheel cyclecar piled high with provisions. And finally, two identical De Dions were manned by a pair of Frenchmen, one of whom, history records, had a truly splendid Magyar moustache.

After an inauspicious start (two contestants got lost before the group had even reached the outskirts of Peking), they were off into uncharted and often hostile territory. No roads, no maps, no pit stops—nothing but a compass to guide them and, to coax them across the finish line, the promise of a magnum of champagne for the man to arrive in Paris first.

En route, the participants endured breakdowns, spills, collapses, sandstorms, rainstorms, illnesses and parasites. It wasn’t all disastrous; they also saw the ancient temples of China, bedded down in Mongolian yurts, drove through the endless expanse of the Gobi desert, met the living god of Urga, traversed the awe-inspiring Steppes and took part in a Russian wedding.

Eighty days and 9,317 miles later, four of the five vehicles did, in fact, reach Paris. Only the flimsy three-wheeler Contal had to be abandoned to the sands of the Gobi desert, its driver rescued from certain death by passing tribesmen. The rest of the contestants triumphantly crossed the finish line, having proved that nothing was impossible when tackled with the right combination of courage, faith, determination and sheer lunacy.

It is in the spirit of these trailblazers—sheer lunacy and all—that [x and x drivers] will set out, on September 10, 2010, to retrace the original Peking to Paris route.