Lunch offered by the workers of Itala to Ettore Guizzardi

Ettore Guizzardi - Winner of the Paris to Beijing. Lunch offered by the workers of Itala to Ettore Guizzardi, returning from the Paris-Beijing Raid. Barriera di Casale, Ristorante Stella d'Italia, 24 August 1907 (Società Anonima Italiana Industrie Grafiche, Turin).

200x135 mm. Printed menu in gold on thin red cardboard, addressed to Mr. 'Poma'. In the upper left corner, a stylised depiction of the Itala automobile driven by Ettore Guizzardi during the Raid.

Ettore Guizzardi was passionate about mechanics from a young age. He often accompanied his father, Enrico - a driver for the then-nascent railways - on his locomotive journeys, when his apprenticeship as a blacksmith allowed him. One fateful day in 1897, the train driven by his father had an accident and derailed near the villa of the Borghese Princes in Albano Laziale. Peasants and servants rushed to the scene, but there was nothing that could be done for Enrico, while the young Ettore was found dazed and bruised and was cared for.

Having recovered, he was employed as a chauffeur, taking care of a six-horsepower car, and later as the head of the entire family car fleet. Noticing his talent and passion for motion and mechanics, Prince Scipione Borghese sent him to FIAT, so Ettore could study internal combustion engines up close, and later to the Ansaldo workshops in Genoa to complete his training. As his trusted chauffeur, the prince offered him the opportunity to accompany him on the famous Beijing-Paris raid of 1907, in which he had entered with an Itala 35/45HP vehicle.

The crew was completed by the renowned journalist Luigi Barzini, special correspondent for the Corriere della Sera and the English newspaper Daily Telegraph. After countless adventures - many of which were overcome thanks to Ettore Guizzardi's skill behind the wheel of the Itala - the Italian team triumphed at the finish line in Paris on 10 August 1907, exactly two months after departing from Beijing, and with twenty days' lead over the others. Indeed, Charles Godard's crew on his Spyker only arrived in Paris on 30 August, while the other two French vehicles, De Dion-Bouton, accumulated such delays that their arrival is scarcely remembered.

The exceptional nature of the undertaking brought the Italian crew, along with their brave driver and mechanic, into the headlines of the time, revisited during the centenary celebrations of the event in 2007. Subsequently, Ettore Guizzardi volunteered as a driver in the First World War, while in the Second, he attained the rank of captain. He passed away at the age of eighty-two on 23 November 1963.

In 1907, the French newspaper Le Matin announced the Beijing-Paris motor race to demonstrate the feasibility of the automobile as a means of transport over great distances, capable of competing with trains and transatlantic ships. The only Italian participant was Prince Scipione Borghese, who entered with an Itala 35/45HP vehicle driven by his faithful chauffeur Ettore Guizzardi. Corriere della Sera agreed with the prince that Luigi Barzini, already a well-known war correspondent at the time, would join the crew to report on the events with his articles. The departure was scheduled for 10 June at 8 am.

Of the numerous registrants, only five vehicles actually appeared in Beijing to participate in the event, and from day one, the Italian crew distinguished themselves due to their technical and organisational superiority. Prince Borghese's preparation had been meticulous, and some of his insights - such as replacing the car's fenders with planks to use as ramps in case of mud and obstacles, or fitting, unlike the cars of that era, front and rear tires of the same size to make them interchangeable and thus reduce spares - along with the timely distribution of supplies along the route, made a significant difference.

The Itala traversed rugged and remote regions of China, Mongolia, Siberia, and Russia, where local populations had never seen an automobile before, overcoming sand traps and fords, breakdowns and off-road excursions. Often, Ettore Guizzardi's expertise and the labour of local peasants, who watched with curiosity the three Italians and their singular vehicle, which they wondered where the horse was hidden, were necessary.

Luigi Barzini managed to send his pieces whenever he found a telegraph station, and the articles thus published in the newspapers Corriere della Sera and Daily Telegraph generated great anticipation among European readers eager to learn how the competitors were faring and, more importantly, how they resolved their daily problems, thus giving the event significant notoriety. The arrival in Paris was a true triumph. Upon returning to Italy, Barzini wrote the famous account The Half of the World Seen from an Automobile. From Beijing to Paris in Sixty Days, published in 1908 simultaneously in eleven languages by the publisher Ulrico Hoepli.

The book reveals how mechanic Guizzardi was the most critical element within the Italian team, as without his extensive technical knowledge and great improvisation skills in the face of various mechanical failures, the Itala would likely never have reached the finish line.

While Prince Borghese deserved credit for enthusiastically endorsing and financing the initiative and meticulously overseeing the operational and logistical details, and while Barzini contributed enormously to its media success through his reports during the journey and later with the famous account, the input of technique, energy, tenacity, and initiative from Ettore Guizzardi was recognised with admiration and gratitude by his travel companions as a decisive element for the success of that historic undertaking!

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