The 3rd International Automobile Exhibition, held 100 years ago in the capital of the Russian Empire, was a huge success

The 3rd International Automobile Exhibition took place from May 15 through 29, 1910, in St. Petersburg's Mikhailovsky Manege, under the patronage of Grand Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich and on the initiative of the Imperial Russian Automobile Society, created in 1902. The capital of the Russian Empire once again became a venue for displaying the achievements of world motor industry.

Under august patronage

The idea of holding an automobile exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1910 was born among members of the Russian Automobile Society (RAS), Russia's leading public automobile organization at the start of the 20th century. As early as 1909, the RAS had developed a five-year program for road-testing automobiles with the aim of popularizing motoring. The Society's plans included holding a landmark competition of automobile endurance in 1910. The route that was laid out was exceptionally symbolic: the race began in the capital, St. Petersburg, with an intermediate stop in Moscow, Russia's ancient capital, and continued down to Kiev, the capital of Kievan Rus, from which the drivers returned once again to St. Petersburg. In the process of preparing for the race, however, the RAS decided to go farther and in the run-up to the competition arranged a grand exhibition of worldwide importance in St. Petersburg.

At the beginning of the 1900s, "self-propelled carriages" were quite a rare sight on the roads of the Russian Empire. Domestic production of autos was virtually nonexistent, and there were very few imports. According to customs data, only 245 autos were brought into the country in 1906. The 1st and 2nd International Automobile Exhibitions, arranged by the RAS in St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1907 and 1908, led to a large-scale expansion of motoring in the European part of the Empire. Russians imported 583 autos in 1907, 879 in 1908, and 1,039 in 1909. In addition, the domestic production of autos began in 1908 at the legendary Russo-Balt Carriage Works, which managed to produce upwards of 1,000 automobiles before 1917.

These exhibitions, however, were being held at a time when Russia had yet to recover fully from the shocks of the Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905-1907. By 1910, political tensions had eased, the country's economy was on the mend, and the government was focused on technological progress.

The automobile was increasingly becoming a vital necessity as the best vehicle available in terms of speed, convenience, and comfort. It was now no longer an object of luxury for the rich, but an irreplaceable means of transportation for business dealings, for carrying passengers and freight, for government institutions, and especially for the military.

The success of the automobile show of 1910 was guaranteed - even more so, since (due to the enormous importance of autos for military purposes) the exhibition now came under the "august patronage of His Imperial Highness Grand Prince Nikolay Nikolayevich Romanov," who was at that time Supreme Commander of the Guards Formations and the St. Petersburg Military District. In addition, the RAS itself found itself under the patronage of Tsar Nikolay II in 1910, acquiring the status of an Imperial Society.

A representative show

The exhibition was planned for May 15 through 29, 1910. All potential exhibitors were notified of the upcoming exhibition well in advance, thereby guaranteeing the involvement of a wide circle of automobile firms. For these purposes the Ministry of Finance granted customs privileges to the participants and organized the cost-free delivery of autos to St. Petersburg via rail. Practically all European and several American companies associated with the manufacture and marketing of autos and automobile accessories responded to the invitation.

There wasn't enough room in the Mikhailovsky Manege for all of the exhibits, and some of them had to be put in the building's courtyard, where a huge canvas wall tent had been erected. The exhibition had been designed by Roman Meltser, the Imperial Court architect, auto enthusiast and a member of the RAS.

Unlike the two previous exhibitions, where the French participants had inarguably taken center stage among the foreign companies, manufacturers from other countries took an active part in the third auto exhibition as well. France was represented by autos from ten manufacturers; Germany, by autos from eight; Great Britain, by autos from five. Italy, the United States, and Switzerland were represented by two companies each; Belgium and Russia, by one company each. Visitors had the opportunity to see new models of autos that had yet to find their way into Russia.

The exhibits were divided into seven classes. The first was finished autos, automobile chassis, and airplanes; the second was auto bodies; the third was trucks, omnibuses, industrial and agricultural machines, military vehicles, and so on; the fourth was motorboats and their parts; the fifth was motorcycles and bicycles. The sixth was devoted to sporting accessories and wardrobes; outfits for motoring, bicycling, and touring; photography and the graphic arts; and magazines and specialized literature. The seventh and final category showcased samples of gasoline, petrol, mineral spirits, and other types of fuel; motor oil and other lubricants; lighting for headlights and searchlights; and special containers for fuels and lubricants. The Nobel Bros. Co. (at that time the largest supplier of petroleum products in the Russian Empire) and the American firm Vacuum Oil (which had rapidly won over the Russian market for motor oils and lubricants) stood out in particular among this class's participants.

In the Russian section, the Russo-Baltique (or Russo-Balt) Carriage Works, participating in the exhibition for the first time, became the center of the public's attention. The company was founded in 1869 as a branch of the large carriage-building firm in Cologne. In 1894, with Russian shareholders acquiring its stock, it became a Russian company.

The Russo-Balt stand took up an enormous amount of space right in the center of the manege. It featured six automobiles and one auto body without a chassis. The company owned factories for the production of railroad carriages; automobiles and light trucks; oil and "aeronautical" engines; airplanes; military carts, wagons, and bateaux; and steelworks. The man behind the aircraft (including the world's first passenger plane, also produced by Russo-Balt) was, incidentally, the famous Russian aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky, who later emigrated to the United States.

Russo-Balt's first auto rolled out of the factory only in 1909, but in just one year Russo-Balt cars were receiving excellent press, brilliantly recommending themselves for auto trials, and becoming enormously popular inside Russia. In 1910, when the P.A. Freze auto plant was transferred to Russo-Balt ownership, a St. Petersburg auto division of the factory was set up as well, followed by the opening of a garage and company station for the servicing and repair of Russo-Balt automobiles on the premises.

Russo-Balt won the exhibition's Grand Gold Medal and a War Department medal as well.

The visitors were particularly taken with tires of Russian manufacture - the new super-durable Provodnik tires and the tires of the Treugolnik Co. (a Russian-American rubber manufacturer), which had successfully competed on the world market against Michelin, Dunlop, and other giants.

The Russian I.P. Puzyryov Factory exhibited some interesting high-quality items produced entirely in Russia: transmission boxes, axles, whole motors, and carriage parts. As the magazine Avtomobil wrote, the exhibition showed that Russia's automobile industry "is now stirring a bit, and it will not be long before we have the opportunity to travel in Russian cars equipped with Russian tires and serviced in Russian garages."

The exhibition led to great excitement among auto enthusiasts. For a while, there were more automobiles parked outside the manege than on display inside it. On occasion, the ordinary public expressed its dissatisfaction with the high prices: "Lordy, a light carriage that costs more than 3,000 rubles. That's awfully expensive!" In contrast, an "oatmobile" (as motoring enthusiasts jokingly referred to the horse) at that time cost approximately 100-150 rubles.

Inside the manege and its courtyard were around 100 autos, 2 airplanes, and several motorboats. Almost everything presented at the exhibition had been bought by the time it ended. Prior to this, Russia had simply never seen so many automobiles sold so quickly. Firms also received additional orders and sold several copies of each type of auto. Many of the cars sported signs saying "Sold" and "Sold twice." The Russo-Balt Co., for example, having exhibited 6 excellent autos, sold 20.

A fashionable novelty also sold well: British Daimlers equipped with "valveless" engines. A cutaway model of the Knight engine that showed clearly how the valveless mechanism worked was on public display at the Daimler stand. Visitors were continually crowding around it.

The best vehicle at the exhibition in the opinion of many was the formidably elegant Opel, an 80 horsepower automobile ordered by Grand Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich. The exquisite lines of this torpedo evoked sheer delight among both the general public and genuine auto connoisseurs. Yet another hit of the exhibition was the 100 horsepower Izotta-Fraskini racer, at which visitors also marveled.

The Three Capitals race

The exhibition ended two days later than advertised, due to the many requests to extend it. Soon afterwards, on June 16, 1910, the Mikhailovsky Manege, recently decked with luxurious limousines and glossy chassis, was home to 46 run-of-the-mill cars, ready for the two-week tour from St. Petersburg to Moscow to Kiev and back to St. Petersburg - a journey of 2,700 versts (3,000 km). Russia's first auto race under the patronage of Emperor Nikolas II went off succesfully, with all of the contestants crossing the finish line.

The race marked the beginning of a vast advertising campaign by the Nobel Bros. Co., which had assumed responsibility for providing free gasoline and motor oil for all of the contestants. The Nobel Co.'s "grand gesture" found an imitator and competitor in the form of the American Vacuum Oil Co., which made free lubrication available for all autos taking part in the race. The Nobel Co., whose fuel recommended itself wonderfully in the race, would soon become the main supplier of gasoline and motor oil to the members of Russia's auto clubs, and the company would open more than 400 gasoline filling stations in the Russian Empire by 1913.

The three Russo-Balt cars performed impeccably. It was in a "Russian auto for all roads" (as the advertising slogan for these cars ran) that Andrei Nagel, Editor-in-Chief of Avtomobil magazine and winner of the RAS Grand Prix, completed the course without a single penalty point. Between 1910 and 1914, Nagel would drive the same automobile (maximum speed, 87.5 km/h; fuel efficiency, 100 km to every 13.5 liters of gasoline) more than 80,000 kilometers through Europe and Africa without a major overhaul. Russo-Balt ruggedness did not got unnoticed by the Russian Empire War Department, which, beginning in 1910, started procuring large numbers of the company's military staff cars, trucks, and ambulances.

The exhibition and the Three Capitals auto race demonstrated the enormous potential of the Russian automobile industry, proving clearly that Russia was capable of competing fully with Western auto manufacturers. The 4th International Automobile Exhibition, held in Russia in 1913, was destined to be the last auto show of worldwide importance in pre-Revolution Russia. World War I, the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, and the Russian Civil War would unfortunately force the country to forget about peaceful parades of automobiles for many years to come.