Peking to Paris 2025 Preview

The Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, the world’s last true motoring adventure, returns for its ninth edition starting from the Great Wall of China on the 17^th of May. It is 118 years since the first P2P in 1907, a year since the 8^th signalled the triumphant return of the event after a five-year absence.

This most ambitious of motoring adventures usually takes place every three years, but due the pandemic and further delays, one of the world’s toughest endurance challenges ran in 2024, returning this year due to backlog demand. This has created an extra logistical challenge for the organising team, a huge undertaking which they relished in order to match the stature of the event, before reverting to the three-year cycle. (2028)

2025 will again be a continent smashing route of 14,988 km, nearly halfway around the world, across its largest continuous land mass, or to put it another way, flying to Peking and driving home. It’s just a few kilometres shy of the distance the very first P2P covered, back in 1907, when Prince Borghese triumphed in a motoring challenge issued by the Le Matin newspaper in January of that year. The route will cover 11 countries, travelling from China, to Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, and then onward to Türkiye and the European leg through Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and France. There are 10 border crossings and six nights under canvas. Tough roads proliferate on a route that spends much of the first three weeks taking the competitors in, out and through the southern reaches of the Gobi Desert.

Amongst the 55 international entrants are P2P and Dakar navigator, Spaniard Prince Alfonso de Orléans-Borbón who sits alongside French racing star Cristophe Bouchut. After a glittering 43-year career producing 127 wins and six Grand Master 24 hr titles by winning Le Mans, Daytona, Spa x2, the Nürburgring, and Dubai – all on tarmac, Bouchut will now switch to the sandy tracks of the Gobi Desert.

Former WRC driver and winner of multiple HERO-ERA endurance rallies, Argentine Jorge Perez Companc is entered with his son Christobal in a 1939 Chevrolet Master Coupe which will positively dwarf the smallest car in the rally and ever on P2P, a 1973 Fiat 500!

There is a government official in the smallest car on the rally, in the form the Minister of Tourism for the Republic of San Marino, Federico Pedini Amati who will bravely be a crew member in the tiny Fiat 500, the smallest ever car on the P2P, whilst directly promoting his country.  He will be supported by desert expert Fabio Longo and P2P veteran and journalist Roberto Chiodi as the crew run under the banner of the Republic of San Marino and in the spirit of 1907 winner Prince Scipione Borghese. Italian national TV and major media will follow their exploits.

Vintage Bentley drivers Tomas de Vargas Machuca and Jonathan Turner will both be making headlines on the 2025 event, but for different reasons. Tomas, the Chairman of HERO-ERA, was lucky to escape injury last year when he and team-mate Ben Cussons had to leap from their 1914 Lafrance when it became engulfed in flames in Azerbaijan. Tomas returns in a 1926 Bentley, but this year he will attempt the arduous journey solo, which will make him the first to achieve it alone in the history of the rally - if he can make it to Paris.

Jonathan Turner is the only competitor on the entry list to have driven the second ever Peking to Paris in 1997 when it was revived by ERA’s Philip Young, and he returns in the same 1929 Bentley that he competed in 28 years ago! He is one of the most experienced drivers too, having entered in 2007 driving an Itala and driven the Himalayan Challenge in 2018 with his son Freddie. This will be his third P2P, the entrepreneur and charity champion has enjoyed motorised adventures for over 30 years and is relishing the 2025 edition, this time with his newbie navigator Nick English who flies pre-war aircraft.

That is a huge contrast to another entrepreneur and business leader from the UK, John Caudwell. It will be his very first Peking to Paris as the philanthropist attempts the 37-day endurance event with his brother Brian in a 1938 Chevrolet Fangio Master Coupe. John is still very active in business and enjoys helping people as he continues to raise the profile of many good causes, including his own charities that he founded, Caudwell Children, Caudwell Youth and Caudwell LymeCo. Now he faces possibly the biggest ever sporting challenge of his life, the P2P!

This is not a trip for the feint hearted, it is a mammoth undertaking, with long days on hard roads, and for many it is a bucket list event, the event of a lifetime. One man who is a certified P2P veteran is chief Route Planner Chris Elkins, and this year’s rally is the 7th that he has been involved in the planning and execution of, almost all of the modern-day incarnations of this historic event. He explained that there have been some unique challenges with the planning of the 9^th edition, and that whilst the route stops in some familiar places, it is a different prospect to the previous year. “The route looks similar on the map to 2024, until we get to Europe. We stay in the same towns and cities across China and Kazakh, but actually, the day to day is completely different to last year. We came home with a whole bunch of notes from the road last year, of ways we could make the route better, and it has been a painstaking process to implement those. It would almost have been easier to tear the map up and start from scratch! But I think it will prove to be a really strong route because of it.”

There are only four competitors taking part this year who competed in 2024, but for those doing the double they will remember just what a delight and surprise rural China is. “It blows your expectations” says Chris, who cites day seven as being a particular highlight, as well as the journey along China’s Great Sea Road, that after some forced rescheduling last year witnessed the crews drive through the breathtaking landscape of the Great Sea Road just after dawn, a treat that will be repeated this time around.

There will be many adventures ahead, which will no doubt imbue the travelling band with the pioneering spirit and camaraderie that are as much an element of these adventures as the driving is.

“The Spirit in the camp is such an important part of the event” says HERO-ERA Competition Director Guy Woodcock. “These are long days, and that’s hard enough with early starts and late finishes, but if your car starts to misbehave then it becomes even tougher. That’s when those around you can really help to get you through.”

The points Chris and Guy touch on are important as by the time the cars hit Paris, this group of people will have spent near enough six weeks with one another, building bonds and friendships that they will never have expected to form. There aren’t many activities in the world these days that exert such an examination of the human spirit, and to that end the P2P still retains the essence of that original adventure that took place 118 years ago.

As always, this event creates a pool of exceptional vehicles, with Australians Alan Maden and Leigh Maden having the honour of competing in the oldest vehicle in the field, a 1917 American LaFrance Type 12, a real behemoth of a machine with its 14.5 litre power plant. They will be joined in the Pioneer class by the 1920 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost of Michael Power and Nigel Parsons. In total, there are 25 machines entered into the pre-war classes, accounting for nearly half of the field, and include endurance rally veterans such as Brian Scowcroft, Jonathan Turner, and Jorge Perez Companc, who will be competing with son Cristobal this year, after the Dakar veteran was a late withdrawal from last year’s event.

As always, the Classic Categories offer an intriguing mix of machines, with the usual plethora of rally stalwarts such as 911’s, Escorts and Datsuns, to more unusual entries, like the Volvo 220 Estate of American competitors John Houck and David Houck – at least they’ll have plenty of space for the luggage! There are also a pair of Peugeot 504 Coupes, one of which, car number 55, is an ex-works machine with winning pedigree, and will be driven by an ex-works Peugeot driver, Christophe Bouchut, who won Le Mans for the famous marque in 1993.

Endurance racing on tarmac though is steadfastly different to an endurance rally of this magnitude, and Competition Director Guy Woodcock’s advice would be to “forget the term race, this isn’t a race, actually it is a rally, but first and foremost you have to get the car to the end. It seems obvious to say, but this is a long way, and the terrain is hard going. You have to look after the car and yourself.”

It’s sage advice and should perhaps be ringing in the ears of the drivers and navigators as they take to the start at the Great Wall of China on the morning of the 17^th May. From there on in all the talking stops, and for 37 days there is just the road to contend with, on one of the last great adventures, as they all attempt to ‘Drive the Impossible’ once more.