Jackie Frady, museum executive director, said: "The Thomas Flyer is one of the nation's most celebrated pieces of automotive history, and, like all National Automobile Museum vehicles, has been meticulously cared for and is still a fully operational vehicle."
"Having the Thomas Flyer take to the road for the World Race is a fitting tribute to one of the world's most famous vehicles," he added.
The race started in New York on April 14 and now the competitors will travel west through the US in order to arrive on April 25, before heading to San Francisco. There, the cars will be embarked on a ship with the destination point Beijing. The competitors will then race across Asia and Europe to arrive at the finish line set in Paris, on July 21.
Other cars that take part in the 2011 World Race are a 1957 Mercedes-Benz S220, a 1929 Hudson sedan and a Freightliner Century Class S-T. This is a clear evidence that the race is not about performance machines of the 21st century.
The 1907 Thomas Flyer was driven to victory in the world’s first around-the globe race by George Schuster on February 12, in 1908. 17 men in 6 automobiles were present in Time Square, in front of 250,000 cheering people, in order to take part in the World Race. The Thomas Flyer covered all 22,000 miles in just 169 days and that’s a record that stands even today, not to mention that gas stations and tire shops weren’t very popular back then.
The world race is the longest competition in motorsport history and, in the early years, the course did not include paved roads or tarmac and competitors had to endure the freezing temperatures of winter as they raced from New York to Paris in their motorized vehicles.
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