This spring/summer, the Pantheon Basel, Forum for Classic Cars, will be organizing a special exhibition on the subject of the "Klausen Race" from 14 April to 20 October 2013 under the title "Klausen Race - the "Swiss Grand Mountain Prize - 1922 - 1934".
On display will be vehicles that raced at the time or were identical in design, as well as documentation and memorabilia from this legendary mountain race.
On a spectacular pass road
The International Klausen Race was held ten times between 1922 and 1934 on the most famous and difficult mountain route in Europe at the time. The best racing drivers in the world met there.
After six years of construction, the 46.6 km long Klausen Pass road from Altdorf UR to Linthal GL was opened to pedestrians and carriages in 1899. The unsurfaced gravel road was made suitable for military use: 4.8 m wide, curves with generous radii and a maximum gradient of less than 9 percent.
A good twenty years later, the First World War was over and the Roaring Twenties had begun, nothing fascinated people of the time more than the fulfillment of the desire for individual freedom and mobility. The Geneva Motor Show reopened its doors after the interruption from 1908 to 1922, and the products of the automotive industry, which was also flourishing in Switzerland at the time, were in demand. In England, France and Italy, tens of thousands watched the popular car races on various racetracks. There was a spirit of optimism: the time was ripe for a race in Switzerland too.
First mountain test drive in 1922
The time had come in 1922. In collaboration with car enthusiasts in the cantons of Glarus and Uri, the Zurich section of the Automobile Club of Switzerland organized the first Klausen race on 27 August 1922, which was declared a "mountain test drive for automobiles". The first 24-hour race at Le Mans started a year later, in 1923, and the Mille Miglia in 1927 - the Klausen race was ahead of its time. And with resounding success, because in the following years the race track became one of the first in the whole of Europe. It led over 21.5 km and an altitude difference of 1237 m through 136 bends, 57 of which were hairpin bends, from Linthal to the top of the Klausen Pass.
Route record in 1934
The legendary German Rudolf Caracciola set the historic course record in 1934 in a Mercedes W25, taking 15:22:20 minutes and averaging 83.9 kilometers per hour on the unpaved gravel mountain road. Up the mountain! The record for motorcycles was set by Tom Bullus on an NSU in 1930, taking 16:41:00 minutes. Contemporary reports write of top speeds of over 200 km/h, of hissing and roaring engines, of fire-breathing Grand Prix racing cars, of dangerous and breakneck speeds.dangerous and breakneck maneuvers, of a wild affair - the fatal accident of a Luxembourg racing driver was hailed by the race committee as a "heroic death".
1934 was the end
The 10th and last International Klausen Race took place on August 5, 1934. Holes and depressions in the gravel surface exceeded the capacity of the chassis of the racing cars of the time. The legend of the Klausen Race began to develop ...
A look back at the Pantheon
The Pantheon Basel, Forum for Classic Cars, is showing a retrospective of the Klausen Race from April 14 to October 20, 2013.
Further information on the Pantheon website.
