Michel Saad, winner of the first Beirut rally

In 1939, Michel Saad, 20, won Lebanon’s first car rally. The route took him, and 20 other drivers, from Beirut to Ghazir and then up the mountain roads of Kesrouan. “We had an MG, one of these heavy English cars that could speed up to 140 kilometers an hour,” recalled Saad, now 80. After his first win, Saad eventually went into high-speed racing cars.
On the winding mountain road, however, driving skills proved more important than speed, according to Leyli Edde, Saad’s co-pilot during the rally at the age of 17.
“The rally was not simply about coming in first and being the big champion. It was about being young and the excitement of the country’s first rally. It was like one big picnic and at the winning post we had a huge party.”

Collection: Michel Saad
Photographer: V. Derounian
© Arab Image Foundation, Beirut
Text: Heiko Wimmen; published in The Daily Star Millenium Special, December 1999