The world’s premier historic motoring event is set to return with an even more challenging route for 2024 and 2025. After three years of closures, planning, recces, and rerouting, the Chinese border finally opened up again in 2022, allowing HERO-ERA to finalize an exciting route that will challenge the hardiest of competitors in the 8th edition of the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge running from 18 May to 23 June 2024. The route will avoid Russia but still take a mammoth 37 days covering 14,000 km.
Starting in Peking in May 2024 and finishing in Paris five weeks later, the 100 entrants will cross nine countries and eight time zones as they tackle remote desert, forest, and mountain tracks all against the clock. From the deserts of China to the Mongolian Gobi and onto the hidden wilderness of Kazakhstan, the crews on the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge will spend many nights under canvas. Competitors will wait for an ageing Caspian Sea ferry to take them to Azerbaijan, but just when they may think the worst is over, they will hit tough roads through Turkey, Greece and into the French Alps. The European section will keep the pressure on teams to the very end.
Senior Event Planner Chris Elkins, a veteran of five Peking to Paris Motor Challenges explained; “The route will be as compelling as it is demanding, all the way through Asia and Europe. After surviving the rigours of the Gobi Desert, teams will battle the elements again, this time in previously hidden, wild and remote parts of Kazakhstan where some of our camps are absolutely nowhere near any form of civilization.
“We are in effect in a second Mongolia. We found tracks in the Southwest that the local guide said were impassable unless in a 6 X 6 vehicle – we managed to get through in our 4 X4 recce vehicle, so they will form part of the adventure. What’s more, we found roads where there aren’t any on the maps!”
The Peking to Paris Motor Challenge is unique in the motoring world, a true historic vehicle endurance event that follows in the wheel tracks of the 1907 Pioneers. Adhering to its original purpose of testing the automobile and crew, it provides the ultimate challenge of a 14,000 km adventure across the world’s biggest land mass.
The 2024 event, the eighth one revived by HERO-ERA, will be the most adventurous yet. As it will have been five years since the last Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, there is still a considerable waiting list for entries, so the next Peking to Paris will follow in 2025.
Tomas de Vargas Machuca, Chairman of HERO-ERA, explained the high level of interest; “The ‘P2P’ is a life-changing event for an array of reasons that include everything from the adventure element, the cultural dynamics, driving and mechanical skills and the utter determination to reach Paris by all. These are the aspects of the Motor Challenge that participants are attracted to, as well as the friendships that are forged out of the true camaraderie between competitors who come from all over the world, from all walks of life, who are looking for the ultimate motor challenge.”
