Full Feature - Ghost of lost 1907 Peking Paris 3 wheel Contal back to life

Mototri Contal jolted into life at Dutch test track ready for second P2P (2019) assault 112 years later.  The first Peking Paris in 1907 comprised five competitors, just one of them didn’t make it to Paris 112 years ago, a French trike. Now Belgian architect Anton Gonnissen has revived a 1906 Contal, determined to complete the event Auguste Pons failed to finish when his three wheeled motorcycle ran out of fuel in the Gobi desert. The original Contal is still there, somewhere. After a long and sympathetic rebuild, involving one of the world’s leading experts on antique cycle cars, the legendary Contal Mototri three-wheeler, was finally taken from the workshop to the test track, for a thorough shakedown, in late February 2019. A full day had been given over for the trial at the EuroCircuit in Valkenswaard, the venue which has previously hosted Dakar machines and Rallycross events. Over the course of the session, the crew comprising Anton Gonnissen (58) from Sint-Martens-Latem and novice navigator Herman Gel