Aside from rocks and dirt, anything that makes it past 100 years old is either tough or fortunate. The 1907 Thomas Flyer that recently appeared on Jay Leno’s Garage is both. It made it through the grueling 1908 New York to Paris Race, eventually wound up in the hands of car collector William F. Harrah, and later became an exhibit at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.
As Phil MacDougall, president of the NAM, explains, there were doubts about the durability of cars very early in the 20th century. Keep in mind, this was when carrier pigeons were still in use. The 1908 New York to Paris Race proved to be the ultimate test of a vehicle’s build quality and mechanical toughness. Not only was it a trek of more than 20,000 miles, but it was also over poor excuses for roads, through deep Alaskan and Siberian snow, and past bandits determined to kidnap drivers and hold them for ransom. Teams from France, Germany, and Italy entered the event and almost didn’t have an American rival. Fortunately, the E. R. Thomas Motor Company wanted some publicity and decided to run one of its Flyer models fresh off a showroom floor.
The Flyer needed power to make good time; its massive 571ci four-cylinder engine had the goods. Twenty- and 35-gallon tanks kept it fueled.
It took driver George Schuster and his crew about 170 days to reach Paris, where they hit a major snag. A bird had hit one of the headlights and destroyed it in Russia, leaving the Flyer with only one working light. Watch the video below to learn what happened after that.
