As far as promotional stunts go, a drive between Paris and Beijing is a guaranteed attention-grabber. After all, it's not the sort of journey that takes place every day. The last publicised one was in 1907 when a French motoring enthusiast came up with the idea for a race to prove his theory that a car was more reliable than a horse.

Almost a century later, a fleet of 36 Mercedes-Benz E-Class 320 CDI cars featuring advanced six-cylinder diesel engines drove off from the Eiffel Tower late last year and arrived some 26 days and 13,600 km later at Yongding Gate, the symbolic entryway to Beijing.

The event was organised by DaimlerChrysler to commemorate the original Peking (as it was then known) to Paris endurance race. This time round, the trans-continental trip was done in the opposite direction.

Along the way, some 360 drivers representing 35 nationalities took turns to drive through nine countries and six time zones. The trip was divided into five legs, passing through Germany, Poland, Russia, Kazakhstan and China's Wild West, linking up with sections of the famous Silk Road and the Great Wall before finally reaching Beijing.

Hitching a ride for the final leg of the trip, it took me just over three days to cover 1,743 km of relatively fuss-free driving from Lanzhou in central China to the capital city of Beijing, taking a route that followed the Yellow River (Huang He), which flows for 5,500 km from the Qinghai grasslands to the Bohai Sea and serves as a lifeline for nomads, farmers and factories in fast-growing industrial regions.

The drive passed through the industrial cities of Wuhai and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia while also skirting the Gobi Desert. Just outside Beijing, there was also a chance to drive up to a majestic section of the Great Wall, built between the third century BC and the mid-17th century.

Contrary to expectations, conditions throughout the journey were generally very good, except for the odd crater-sized pothole and local drivers in need of a, well, crash course in some aspects of the Highway Code (such as how to avoid ramming other vehicles). The network of roads, especially the section between Lanzhou and Wuhai, featured spectacular new highways, wonderful vistas and - apart from the occasional truck - very little traffic.

Among the production E-Class vehicles in the convoy were several equipped with the 4Matic all-wheel-drive option, three with clean-diesel Bluetec engines and even a special armoured version that weighed an extra 400 kg.

The road safety signs on the highway made for an unintentionally quirky read - 'Do not drive tiredly' and 'Don't try fatigue driving' - but they succeeded in getting the message across until the cars arrived at Badaling, where the first restored section of the 6,350 km-long Great Wall was opened to the public 50 years ago. This was roughly where the drivers of the original Peking to Paris rally passed through at the start of their journey in 1907.

Aside from 27 flat tyres, three broken windshields, several cracked headlights caused by loose stones and a variety of nicks and dents, the entire convoy made the journey from Paris to Beijing unscathed. One car deliberately completed the event without being washed just to see what dirt, grime and dust accumulated over all those kilometres would look like. Another vehicle - an actual Paris taxi - kept its meter running and ended up with a 40,000-euro (S$81,104) tab.