It was, in its day, the world's most grueling road race. Now Hemmings calls it "the world's most grueling amateur road rally." It's La Carrera Panamericana, formerly known (in English-speaking countries) as the Mexican Road Race. I remember it as a young road racing enthusiast captivated by every word in Road & Track magazine. During March of 1953 James K. Lamona wrote in Autosport Review: "The 3114 km Mexican road that stretches south to north from Tuxla to Juárez is, according to Alfred Neubauer [legendary Mercedes-Benz Competition director], a combination of Tripoli's Grand Prix, the Italian Mille Miglia, the German Nurburgring, and the Le Mans 24 hrs... the race begins in a tropical climate where the temperature is high and humid and continues along a road that goes from sea level to a suffocating 3000 meter altitude! Temperature variations go from 34 celcius to almost 2 degrees above freezing in just 72 hours... the road is paved with a mixture of volcanic ash and this highly abrasive substance will turn a perfectly new passenger car tire to a worn-out one in a 1000 km distance."

And that's not the half of it. Those 3000+ kilometers were lined with trees, telephone posts, villages and villagers, drop-offs into deep canyons, and stray sheep and dogs. Yet that didn't deter the entrants, mostly professionals backed by car manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic. Lincoln Capris raced next to Ferraris (albeit in separate classes), Mercedes 300SLRs snarled at Chrysler 300s. Drivers included Karl Kling, Herman Lang, Hans Herman from Germany; Curtis Turner and Marshal Teague of stock car racing fame; hot-rodders Mickey Thompson, Clay Smith and Ak Miller; the one-and-only Carroll Shelby; Tony Bettenhausen and Jerry Unser from open wheel racing; future F1 champion Phil Hill; Louis Chiron from France; Italians Alberto Ascari, Piero Taruffi, Umberto Maglioli and Felice Bonetto. Ever wonder why Porsche still sells a Carrera model? Right. Big-time class winner. By contrast the classic rally may seem tame but the point-to-point times are demanding enough that participants get a feeling for the way it used to be (note the Studebaker coupe in the photo).