A century later, the Greatest Auto Race was still an internationally known tale of adventure, bravado, courage, and daring – perfect fodder for a movie – and in 2007 production began on the film The Greatest Auto Race on Earth. Making a documentary about one of the greatest adventures of all time is not without complications, however. While the original racers had to contend with a route that had to be altered because of weather and lack of roads, language barriers, and equipment breakdowns, the film crew also had come trials of their own. Here's an overview of some of them:

The Cars:

In order to accurately represent the four competing vehicles, working reproductions had to be built. Two of these new cars were reproductions of the Thomas Flyer and the German Protos, but this wasn't as simple as painting an old Corvette or making a classic Model T Ford look new. Instead, the production company spent over a year building the cars from scratch. This included:

Making wooden artillery wheels and waiting for them to be properly "dry," which took several months.

Designing hubs that would look authentic but still work in tandem with modern braking systems.

Metal workers having to learn how to turn out metal in new shapes in order to construct the cars.

Carpenters who had to switch gears from building sets to building safe, authentic looking wooden motor coaches.

American actors who were unfamiliar with right-hand drive vehicles.

Mis-aligned wheel-torque on one of the cars (the Thomas) making it look as if the wheel was not attached correctly.

Actors who had to drive – and push – the cars in melting snow and slush.

Those were just a few of the challenges, however. Others were more specific to filming, for example, one shot was filmed in a part of Alberta, Canada, known as the Badlands, which area is a geographical formation of ditches carved into the earth by ancient rivers, revealing deep, tall gorges. In order to achieve the desired shot, the replica Thomas had to be lowered one hundred feet down into one of the gorges via the tow hitch on the rescue truck that was always on-set in case of an accident. Why do something so treacherous? The flat section of dried-up river valley upon which the car came to rest was being used as a stand-in for the Veldt of eastern Russia. In the end it took the combined efforts of a truly committed cast and crew in order to run the Thomas in reverse in order to nail the shot, but it worked.

Locations:

Of course, the cars themselves were hardly the only issues the film crew had to resolve. Whenever location shooting is involved, movie companies must often solve problems on the fly and The Greatest Auto Race on Earth was no exception.

One such incident took place several months into the shoot, when the scene before the lens was a pivotal moment of the 169-day race: the pulling of the Protos from a mud bog by the competing Thomas drivers. The art department of the movie had taken nearly a week to make the bog near a small pond, and their creation was so realistic that instead of carefully scripted and choreographed moves, the actors were briefed about the actual event, and cast and crew acted as if it really was 1908, and there just happened to be a film crew documenting everything. Just as in the actual race, the replica Protos really got stuck in the mud, and the replica Thomas really pulled it to safety.

While the shooting schedule involved many more locations, including Fort Edmonton (standing in for New York, Chicago, Buffalo, parts of upper New York state, and parts of the American Midwest), Longview (in the foothills of the Rocky mountains), which location was used as the western United States, as well as Camrose, which had a train that was used for the one that almost demolished the German Protos. Other shots took place in Edmonton (standing in for Berlin and Paris), the desert of Nevada, and Munich, Germany.

In many of these places, the elements were also a challenge, as cameras had to be kept warm enough to run in -30C chills or cool enough to function in +30C heat (that's a range of -22F to 86F for the metric-challenged).

Actors:

Even the talent added their special perspective to the movie, with each of the groups playing "foreign" teams speaking only in their native languages – the Germans speaking only Berlin German on-set, and the Italians speaking only Naples Italian. (In an interesting echo of the original Italian team, it was this group that seemed to have the most fun wooing women in local bars after work.)

When filming was finally complete, the miles of film went through a six-month editing process in which the script was trimmed from six hours, to three, and then to 95 minutes. The end result? A documentary film that captures the spirit of adventure, sense of wonder, and great fun of the Greatest Auto Race on Earth.