The Court Treatt expedition was the first to drive a motor vehicle  from Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt. The party of six people set off in two Crossley light trucks on 13th September 1924 and reached Cairo on 24th January 1926 sixteen months later, after covering 12,732 miles.

Sources

The information contained on these pages has come from a number of sources. The primary one has been "Cape to Cairo" by Stella Court Treatt who based the book, published in 1927, on the comprehensive diary she kept during the expedition. Many place names or spellings have changed over the years and although most can still be located,  others are a mystery. Where a current name is known it is given in the text. The book is no longer in print but is widely available from specialist dealers.  A warning has to be given that it does not meet 21st century ideas of political correctness.

Further information has come from the souvenir programme sold at public showings of the film of the journey, publicity material issued by Crossley Motors Ltd and other contemporary press reports.

Biography material has been gathered from a variety of genealogical web sites with some very obvious errors and confusions not passed on.

The film of the journey, silent of course, still exists but is not to my knowledge, publicly available. One report mentions that a re-edited version with sound track was released in 1934 but no trace of this can be found. Somewhere in the wide world, the still photo archive and other original material must also still exist.

© Malcolm Asquith 2009