August 10th 1897
C. Harrington Moore and Frederick R. Simms founded Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, later known as the Royal Automobile Club. Its the oldest auto club.
August 10th 1907
Stretching nearly 10,000 miles, this Peking-to-Paris race lasted for 62 days, and was won on this day by the team of Prince Scipione Borghese and Ettore Guizzardi of Italy. Driving like a madman across Asia and Europe, Prince encountered brush fire, got stuck in a swamp, numerous crash and was pulled over by a policeman in Belgium. The policeman refused to believe that the prince was racing, rather than merely speeding.
There were no rules in the race, except that the first car to reach Paris would win the prize of a magnum of Mumm Champagne. The race went without any assistance through country where there were no roads or road-maps. For the race, camels carrying fuel left Peking and set up at stations along the route to give fuel to the racers. The race followed a telegraph route so that the race was well covered in newspapers at the time. Each car had one journalist as a passenger, with the journalists sending stories from the telegraph stations regularly through the race.
August 10th 1986
The Hungarian Grand Prix, the first such race held behind the Iron Curtain, was won by Nelson Piquet on this day driving the Williams-Honda. Held at the twisty Hungaroring near Budapest, the race has been a mainstay of the racing calendar. Run in the heat of a central European summer, it also holds the distinction of being the only current Grand Prix venue that had never seen a wet race up until the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix. The first Grand Prix saw 200,000 people spectating even though the tickets were expensive at the time.
Peking to Paris & Prince Borghese
Prince Boorghese with his 35/45HP 7 liter Itala
The Peking to Paris winner Itala now at the MUSEO DELL'AUTOMOBILE, Torino
One of the crash during the race
The Itala being pulled across unnavigable terrain
Nelson Piquet Souto Maior aka Nelson Piquet Senior.
Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia
jamd.com
gutenberg.org