The things they say

The things they say

rip he first motor race: such 1 call it, for as such it will probably always be known in the annals of motor racing; but as a description of the Concours des Voitures sans Chevaux, organised by Le Petit Journal in 1894, it is almost ideally inaccurate. For this concours was not the first ever event organised for motor cars. It had been preceeded full seven years by the competition organised by M Fossier of the Velocipede in 1887 . . . but one car took part in it, a steam tricycle of the Comte de Dion; but the event of 1894, although it did unite a number of competitors, belied the description of the first motor race in a second respect in that it was in no sense of the term a race” — MOTOR SPORT’S one-time respected and valued contributor the late EKH Karslake, writing in The Autocarin July 1933. W B