Tuesday 11th June 1895

The first ‘real motor race’, held over three days, from Paris to Bordeaux and back, began. The first to finish was Emile Levassor of France in a Panchard-Levassor two-seater, with a 1.2-litre Daimler engine developing 3.5 bhp. His time was 48 hours 47 minutes, at an average speed of 15.01 mph. The Michelin brothers entered the race with the first four-wheeled petrol car to run on pneumatic tyres, a Peugeot L’éclair. They used up their stock of 22 spare inner tubes and spent so much time mending punctures and bursts that they gave up after 90 hours. The race winner Levassor said that air-filled tyres would obviously never be of the slightest use for motor cars!