London to Brighton Veteran Car Run

The tradition & historical record

The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is the world's longest-running motoring event, held on a course between London (51°30′31″N 00°09′49″W) and Brighton (50°49′42″N 00°08′22″W), England. To qualify, participating cars must have been built before 1905. It is also the world's largest gathering of veteran cars. The first edition, "The Emancipation Run" in 1896, celebrated the recently passed Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which liberalised motor vehicle laws in the United Kingdom. ¹

The run has taken place most years since its initial revival in 1927. It currently takes place on the first Sunday in November, starting at sunrise, about 7:00 AM, in Hyde Park, London, and mostly following the old A23 road to the finish at Brighton – a distance of 54 mi (87 km). There is one official stops along the way: Crawley (for coffee) and Preston Park (in a suburb of Brighton). Preston Park is the official finishing point; the cars then proceed to Madeira Drive on the seafront, the venue for Brighton's Official Finishing Point. ¹

The event is organized on behalf of the Royal Automobile Club, who 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 mph (32 km/h). Any that finish before 4:30 PM are awarded a medal. There are a few other events preceding the Veteran Car Run, such as the Motoring Forum, the Veteran Car Run Sale, a motor show, and a participant reception. ¹

The first run took place on 14 November 1896, a wet Saturday. Organised by Harry John Lawson, it was named "The Emancipation Run" as a celebration of the recently passed Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which had exempted motor vehicles weighing less than 3 tons unladen from the restrictive Locomotive Acts of 1861, 1865 and 1878 and increased the speed limit to 14 mph (23 km/h). Since 1865 the speed limit had been 4 mph (6.4 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3.2 km/h) in the town with a man required to walk 20 yd (18 m) ahead of the vehicle to assist riders and drivers of horses. The run was also the first meet of the Motor Car Club, of which Lawson was president. As well as being a celebration, Lawson planned the event to promote his British Motor Syndicate and its patents, most of which had been acquired from French and German companies. His Commercial Manager, the fluent French speaker H.O.Duncan, arranged for the appearance of the Bollée brothers and several Panhard & Levassor cars, with their drivers, including the winners of notable races. However, Count de Dion refused to participate, smarting at having been paid half his fee for his patent rights in shares of the Syndicate, which he considered worthless. Frederick Simms prevailed on his friend, Gottlieb Daimler to attend. The event started with a breakfast at the Charing Cross Hotel, which included the symbolic tearing in two by Lord Winchelsea of a red flag. The organisers of the Emancipation Run had made much of their claim that the man who walked ahead had to carry a red flag. The 1865 Act had imposed this requirement but the 1878 Act had lifted it. ¹

The event was organised as a procession, but some approached it as a race. The official result of the fastest finishers was: ¹

At least two of these must be regarded as dubious: H.O.Duncan (who drove the third Bollée tricar, which did not finish) wrote:It is quite possible that the electric vehicles―Sherrin's bath-chair and Bersey's electric landau― were sent by train. I quite fail to believe that at that period any accumlator was capable of driving an electric vehicle a distance of over 50 miles at a stretch!! ¹

Although one of the Duryea cars had been witnessed arriving in Brighton half an hour before Léon Bollée, both of them were omitted from the official result. Some attributed this to Lawson's not having bought any patents from Duryea, and so having no interest in promoting their vehicles. H.O.Duncan wrote:Although it was said that two American Duryea cars were the first to arrive in Brighton, there seems to be some doubt about this. It is rather strange we never heard anything about these cars officially or unofficially before the event!! Whether they arrived by train or slipped in somewhere on the road, no one seems to know―and the mystery has never been solved.Duryea's most notable previous success had been the Chicago Times-Herald Race in 1895. This had been conducted in a snow storm and neither of the cars which finished had stuck to the course. Most of the difference between Duryea's elapsed and running times was incurred in two stops for repairs, each requiring the use of a forge. In the earlier Exhibition Run, he had led initially before having another stop at a forge and then crashing out. His results were: ¹

Mayade had won the 1896 Paris-Marseille-Paris race at an average speed of 15.6 mph, so his average speed of 8.8 mph on the same vehicle in the Emancipation Run indicates that he was not racing. The Bollée brothers' tricars were special twin-cylinder racing versions, not the standard single-cylinder version, but they carried an observer on the front seat (nicknamed le tue belle-mère), so they had to temper their speed. The Emancipation Run was meant to be a procession. If the Duryeas had been following the course, they would have had to overtake the Bollée brothers. ¹

During the next few years, Commemoration Run took place between Whitehall Place and Sheen House Club covering the distance of about 8 mi (13 km). The London to Brighton run was not staged again until 1927. Since then it has run annually, except from the onset of the Second World War up to 1947 owing to petrol rationing, and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With all this considered, it is the world's longest running motoring event. Since 1930, the event has been controlled by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC). ¹

Many racing drivers and celebrities have taken part in the event, including Richard Shuttleworth (1928–1934; 1936–1938), S. C. H. "Sammy" Davis, Sir Malcolm Campbell, Prince Bira, George Eyston, Richard Seaman, Kaye Don, George Formby, Phil Hill, Stirling Moss, Jochen Mass, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill The 72nd anniversary run took place in 1968 and was joined by celebrity participants Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, in a 1903 De Dion-Bouton. That year Stirling Moss also participated, driving a 1903 four-cylinder Mercedes. Some participants dress up in a late Victorian or Edwardian style of clothing. In 1971 Queen Elizabeth II was a passenger in a 1900 Daimler. A regular participant is Prince Michael of Kent. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “London to Brighton Veteran Car Run”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is veteran car event in England, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²