The
London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is the longest-running motoring event in the world. The first run was in 1896, and has taken place most years since then. To qualify, the cars must have been built before 1905. It is also the world's largest gathering of veteran cars - 443 started in 2005.
It takes place, currently, on the first Sunday in November and starts at sunrise from
Hyde ParkHyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, England and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and mostly follows the
A23 roadThe A23 road is a major road in the United Kingdom between London and Brighton, East Sussex. It became an arterial route following the construction of Westminster Bridge in 1750 and the consequent improvement of roads leading to the bridge south of the river by the Turnpike Trusts...
to finish at
BrightonBrighton is a town in the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex on the south coast of Great Britain...
—a distance of 86 km (54 miles).
The
London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is the longest-running motoring event in the world. The first run was in 1896, and has taken place most years since then. To qualify, the cars must have been built before 1905. It is also the world's largest gathering of veteran cars - 443 started in 2005.
It takes place, currently, on the first Sunday in November and starts at sunrise from
Hyde ParkHyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, England and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and mostly follows the
A23 roadThe A23 road is a major road in the United Kingdom between London and Brighton, East Sussex. It became an arterial route following the construction of Westminster Bridge in 1750 and the consequent improvement of roads leading to the bridge south of the river by the Turnpike Trusts...
to finish at
BrightonBrighton is a town in the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex on the south coast of Great Britain...
—a distance of 86 km (54 miles). There are two official stops along the way:
CrawleyCrawley is a town and local government district with Borough status in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and northeast of the county town of Chichester, covers an area of and had a population of 99,744 at the time of the 2001 Census.The area has been...
(for coffee) and
Preston ParkPreston Park is a park near Preston Village in the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. It is north of the centre of Brighton, and served by the nearby Preston Park railway station....
(in a suburb of Brighton). Preston Park is in fact the official finishing point; the cars then proceed to Madeira Drive on the seafront at Brighton.
The organisers emphasise that the event is not a race—they do not even publish the order in which cars finish, and participants are not permitted to exceed an average speed of 20
mphThe mile per hour is a unit of speed, measured in Imperial units expressing the number of international miles covered per hour.It is currently the unit used for speed limits, and speeds, on roads in the United Kingdom and United States...
(32 km/h). Any that finish (many don't) before 16.30 are awarded a medal.
Participants
Some participants dress up in a late
VictorianVictorian fashion comprises the various fashions and trends in British culture that emerged and grew in prominence throughout the Victorian era and the reign of Victoria, a period which would last from June 1837 to January 1901. Covering nearly two thirds of the 19th century, the 63 year reign...
or
EdwardianThe Edwardian period or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son, Edward, marked the start of a new century and the end of the Victorian period...
style of clothing. In 1971,
The QueenElizabeth II is the queen regnant of sixteen independent states known informally as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,...
was a passenger. A regular participant is
Prince Michael of KentPrince Michael of Kent is a member of the British Royal Family and a grandson of King George V and Queen Mary....
.
History
The first run took place on 14 November 1896, which was a wet Saturday: it was organised by Harry J. Lawson, and was named "The Emancipation Run": it was a celebration of the lifting of the
1865 Locomotive ActThe Locomotive Act is a reference to the Locomotives Act 1865 introduced by the British parliament as one of a series of measures to control the use of mechanically propelled vehicles on British public highways during the latter part of the 19th century...
which had required vehicles to travel no faster than 4 mph (6.4 km/h), preceded by a person on foot, in the early years carrying a red flag. The 1896 run started with a breakfast at the Charing Cross Hotel which included the symbolic tearing in two by
Lord WinchelseaMurray Edward Gordon Finch-Hatton, 12th Earl of Winchilsea and 7th Earl of Nottingham , styled the Hon. Murray Finch-Hatton until 1887, was a British Conservative politician and agriculturalist....
of a red flag.(The Locomotive Act was still popularly known the "Red Flag Act", even though the requirement for the man preceding the vehicle to carry a red flag had been removed when The Act was updated by means of an Amendment Act in 1878). The competitors gathered outside the Metropole Hotel, with the cars accompanied by a "flying escort" - numbered by one witness as "probably 10,000" - of pedal cyclists. Recreational cycling having become popular with the English in the final decades of the nineteenth century. 33 motorists set off from London for the coast and 17 arrived in Brighton. The first of the cars set off from London at 10.30 am and the first arrival in Brighton, by a
BolléeLéon Bollée Automobiles was a French company founded by Léon Bollée in Le Mans to build a first vehicle called "Voiturette".The Bollée family, all car makers, created three brands:* steam vehicles, Amédée Bollée , built between 1873 and 1885....
was timed at 2.30 pm . However, all except three of the Brighton arrivals took place more than two hours later than that.
The run was next staged in 1927, and since then annually (with the exception of wartime years and due to petrol rationing in 1947), making it the world's longest running motoring event. From 1930, the event has been controlled by the
Royal Automobile ClubThe Royal Automobile Club is a private club and is not to be confused with RAC plc, a motorists' organisation, which it formerly owned.It has two club houses, one in London at 89-91 Pall Mall, and the other in the countryside at Woodcote Park, Surrey, next to the City of London Freemen's School...
.
The 1953 comedy movie
GenevieveGenevieve is a 1953 British film directed by Henry Cornelius and starring John Gregson, Dinah Sheridan, Kenneth More and Kay Kendall as two couples in a car race. The musical score was composed and performed by Larry Adler with dance numbers by Eric Rogers....
takes place during one of these runs.
The 72nd run took place in 1968 and was joined by celebrity participants Prince Rainier and
Princess GraceGrace Patricia Kelly was an American film and stage actress and fashion icon who later became Princess Grace of Monaco....
of
MonacoMonaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a small sovereign city-state located in South Western Europe on the northern central coast of the Mediterranean Sea, having a land border on three sides only with France, and being about away from Italy. Its size is just under 2 km² with an...
, competing in a 1903
De Dion-BoutonDe Dion-Bouton was a French automobile manufacturer and railcar manufacturer operating from 1883 to 1932. The company was founded by Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, Georges Bouton and his brother-in-law Charles Trépardoux....
. That year
Stirling MossSir Stirling Craufurd Moss OBE is a retired racing driver from England. His success in a variety of categories placed him among the world's elite – he is often called "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship".Moss, who raced from 1948 to 1962, won 194 of the 497 races he...
also participated, driving a 1903 four cylinder
MercedesMercedes is a girl's name of Spanish origin, referring to a title for the Virgin Mary,Automobile-related use* Mercedes , the pre-1927 brand name of German automobile models and engines built by Daimler company...
.
External links