Old timer's rally-raid Hamburg-Shanghai in Russia

[henk4]

Volvo guys initially pondered about entering with a (BMW?)Gogglemobile/Henkel, one of these pesky 3-wheel bubble-things, but quickly abandoned that thought, for lack of ventilation{*} & luggage-room....)

MB Pagode was driven by a women crew, mother and daughter....)
(there was another women crew, VW-Beetle)

{*} cq heat-collaps in tropical China; all cabrio's closed their tops, and both bike drivers had to stop frequently below viaducts, to cool down in the soaring heat (+40C & 100% humidity....the dry Gobi was very comfortable in comparison)

Willem (probably the first Volvo C3-series in history that ran so many kilometers, day after day, with the safari-windscreens open....) Jan

Welcome, fellow countryman
I note that you are up early...(I am not because I am currently in a city on the Southern Silkroad, which I would not advise to be included in any adventure tour...stay north of the Tien Shan.

[Savageduck]

There was no BMW-car in that rallye, only a BMW bike....)
(plus a Harley Davidson....both drivers close to age 70 btw, quite remarkable)

Though there were two Dutch teams present, 1x Ford Mustang, 1x Volvo C306....)

(and in 2007, Duesseldorf-Shanghai, there was a BMW 2002 present, IIRC, also organized by MediaDirekt/Hamburg & ChinaTours/Hamburg)
(in 2008, a much smaller convoy of 3 vehicles travelled to Hongkong along the Silk Route, in 2009 a Chinese convoy made the reverse tour, and in 2010 a dozen oldtimers/youngtimers again did the Silk Route, ending in Shanghai again....for next year, a China-only oldtimer-rally is planned, from Shanghai to Beijing in 3-4 weeks, with a wide loop to the west)

See Self Drive Tours | Abenteuer auf 4 Rädern for more details on past/present/future.

Well if you were considering odd rallies, there were the Peking-Paris series. Here is an entry in the 1907-2007 Centenary running of the Peking-Paris Motor Challenge, a 1916 Lancia Theta run by Jan Vobril & Roland Moos.

[W-J-M]

Well if you were considering odd rallies, there were the Peking-Paris series. Here is an entry in the 1907-2007 Centenary running of the Peking-Paris Motor Challenge, a 1916 Lancia Theta run by Jan Vobril & Roland Moos.

Yes, I know; have gathered & analysed/organised tons of info about this and similar trips, past, present & future, accumulated in an somewhat crude raw overview, that I call 'The Great Races'....including several historical side-steps & predecessors, like (pre-)medieval trips between Europe/Siberia/Mongolia/China by sled & horse, plus those in modern times, starting in 1859, even at that time done by a brave female soul, Catharine de Bourboulon.

http://www.markerink.org/WJM/HTML/The-Great-Races.txt


That said, I never really liked the concept of these larger high-profile rallyes, being a bone-knuckle hard, fast & sleepless torture, with a) hardly any opportunity to really watch & absorb the surroundings (if only because of frequent evening/night driving), b) hardly any time to chat with locals, c) have hardly any time to catch up with the group in case of breakdown, and d) still pay through the nose for a service that most often doesn't exist (or used for paying airtime-on/filmcrew-of a prestigious TV-channel).
Doing that trip of a lifetime, along a route hardly any participant will ever travel again in his life, in just 4 weeks is both physical and mental torture.

Maybe die-hard rally aficionado's like living on the clock/tripmeter, and wrenching long nights under a vehicle that falls apart mostly because of speeding, but it isn't my concept of travel/leisure, not even if I had money by the billions.

So this German rally, doing the same trip in nearly 10 weeks, had much more appeal to begin with....you don't want to travel such a distance, along such remote & scenic places, without *also* being a full-package tourist....)

Also, anyone considering this particular Motor Challenge (or one of its deratives by the same organisation) should read several books of past rallys....beyond physical & mental torture, joining one of those borders on sadomasochism....)

PS: if time is no object, and if you can live with the fact that you won't attract the same local fascination with a modern vehicle as you would with a bunch of oldtimers, you can also join one of the few guided camper-tours (mostly German), as a 6 months round trip (combining both south/Silk route & north/Siberia)....

[W-J-M]

Btw, the two guys in the open Willys Jeep were both also close to 70 years of age (one a retired carshop-owner, the other a retired brick-layer-turned-bodyguard-of-German-president-Schroeder)
(same vehicle+trailer+driver also joined another guided oldtimer-rally in Namibia in the year following)