by Roberto Chiodi
We are on the home straight, next Sunday the Fiat 500 Club Italia car will conclude this incredible adventure of a truly grueling Beijing-Paris. Just look at the cars behind us at the bottom of the list: Rolls Royce, Bentley, Mercedes, Datsun, Volvo. And just ahead of us are two Porsche 911s. Of course, we have chosen to reach Paris as our final goal, trying to avoid the special stages on the most treacherous terrain for a 500 (sand, dirt roads and corrugated roads with vibrations that the low power and the small wheels make impracticable). But we can guarantee that a month of stages like this, racing “half the world”, was at the limit – if not beyond – the possibilities of a Cinquino, however prepared but still standard.
Moreover, the symbolic phrase on the hood (“Beyond imagination”) represented well the spirit with which we started: to show the wonder of a historic republic like San Marino and do it with a product of Italian ingenuity like the Fiat 500. I would say that we have largely succeeded in our intent: the car has been an incredible success everywhere, with everyone around taking pictures of it and taking pictures of themselves with it, with every overtaking the drivers slowing down and saying hello, the passengers all with their cell phones pointed and thumbs up.
In the photo, final checks and finishing touches in a garage in Sofia “booked” for us by Guido Guerrini, the driver who leads the Fia Alternative Energy Cup and competes with a San Marino license. Everything worked well; a project bordering on audacity, international visibility, support from friends who believed in this extraordinary adventure. And a motivated and combative crew composed of the Minister of Tourism Federico Pedini Amati and the entrepreneur Stiven Muccioli, both from San Marino; and the "deans" of the Pechino Parigi (seven participations between the two of them) the Romans Fabio Longo, dentist, and Roberto Chiodi, journalist.
Basta, less than 3.000 km to go: trumpets blare and the treadmill is on for the arrival in Paris of “Lucia”. Medals and the title of “finishers” await us. Prestigious and unique qualifications for a Fiat 500 that, competing for the first time in the Peking-Paris, has managed to conquer the “Everest of rallies”.
