1908 New York to Paris Race Zust car (with photo)

[Muletrain]

The Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden, Utah has a great story about the 1906 Zust motorcar which took third place in the 1908 New York-to-Paris race.

The car has been restored by a couple from British Columbia, and they are taking it across country, following the U.S. section of the race route.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

[Ivan Saxton]

In the newspaper link article, it is said that metal from bullets was used to replace engine bearings. The lead would not be a good choice for an engine bearing alloy. The only auto bearing metal (till the copper/lead of rolled strip thin modern shells) which contained lead was the material specifically designed for T Ford main crankshaft bearings which were poured into the cast iron block at a much higher temperature that tin-based babbit in faith and hope that there would be wetting and adhesion to the cast iron. With usual pouring metals, if you contaminate with lead the strict instruction is that you put it aside for recycling.

Scarfolio was said to have been a poet.

In respect to measurement system, other early Italian cars sometimes used imperial whitworth threads. This is perhaps not surprising in that much early engineering precision machinery was invented in England, notably Henry Maudslay's screw-cutting lathe. And it is likely that early European machine tool makers, including Zust, may well have started out using English equipment to make their own. When you have to measure something, the basic consideration is that you use a unit which bears a sensible relationship to what you are measuring. Metrics are fine for scientific work, but the thousandth of an inch is the most useful practical unit of measurment in the workshop. However, metric ball bearings have long been standard.

Ivan Saxton

[jim43]

May 29 issue "Old Car Weekly" has some good articles on the 1908 Great Race , and the cars.

Jim 43

[Guest windjamer]

About 3 maby 4 years ago a young couple with a baby started an awrond the world trip in a Gram Page circ. 1930. They where at Hershey fall meet. They started the trip with faith and a coffee can for donations. There story was pretty interisting. Anyone hear how they made out?? AS Paul Harvy might say, whats the rest of the story?? Sure took a lot of guts.IMHO

[frame30]

The restoration of the Zust is a great story. They came to the screening of The Greatest Auto Race on Earth in 2008 when we premiered it. And, they brought out the car to the Reynolds to sit with our Thomas and Protos picture cars. It was great to see all three winners together again. We were able to incorporate a few shots of their original Zust into our film with our replica Zust. The film was just awarded the EP Ingersoll Award at the Society of Automotive Historians in Hershey this October. Our web site The Great Auto Race 1908 | In the Beginning has pictures on the build etc. Cheers. Michael.