Events of the month

Park Lane, 5.45am on a Sunday morning. No, Motor Sport isn’t stumbling home after a night on the tiles. It’s the morning of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, and to take part in this wonderful tradition the early bird catches the worm – or in our case a 1904 Panhard et Levassor.

The sight of Edwardian horseless carriages chugging out of the darkness is ghostly, as if motoring’s founding fathers haunt the deserted roads of London as the city sleeps. Fresh off trailers, a steam car boiler is stoked into life and a Congestion Charge-friendly electric pioneer trundles past in complete silence, on a warm-up before joining the Serpentine start in Hyde Park.

In the best traditions of Bill Boddy, Motor Sport is cadging a lift to the south coast, joining recently retired historic racer Irvine Laidlaw in his pride and joy. Mechanic, car preparer and co-driver Phil Stainton offers much-needed coffee, before I climb on board beside Lord Laidlaw’s wife, Christine, in the back of an immaculate maroon four-seater.

The 15hp four-cylinder Panhard, known as The Old Lady, is relatively modern among this company. It was the 237th car to be sold by C?S?Rolls in the same year he met Henry Royce and co-founded what would become the most celebrated automobile manufacturer of them all. The car was a wedding present to Hugh Marsham-Townshend, cousin to Charles Rolls, whose family would found the Western Motor Works through Rolls employees H?C?Bennett and chief test driver Arthur Priest. The company, a Vauxhall/Bedford agent, would maintain the Panhard until 1954 when Marsham-Townshend, in an act of generosity, gifted the car to Bennett. It remained in the family until 2005, Lord Laidlaw purchasing it in 2008 with the intention of taking part in the LBVCR. He has completed each run held since, boosting our confidence of making it to Brighton this morning.

The brass catches the light as dawn breaks and Irvine (no formalities required) selects first gear from the four-speed sequential transaxle chain drive. It’s not yet 7.30am, but large crowds have gathered as we cross the startline with a parp-parp of the horn. Down Constitution Hill, around Buckingham Palace (but no sign of Her Maj), along Birdcage Walk and into Parliament Square, smiling faces and cheers greet us as we make our way. It’s snug here in the back, the ride is firm but comfortable and we’re thankful for a crisp, dry morning instead of the heavy rain that dogged last year’s run.

Across Westminster Bridge, cars are already pulling up and bonnets are raised. By Brixton, we counted more than 30 early casualties. Here, bleary figures that have clearly spent some time on the tiles stare in confusion as we pass, motoring down the A23 and on to Streatham, Norbury and Thornton Heath. This grim trunk road has never been so pleasant… All the way, locals wave. Traffic is not usually popular around these parts, but it is today.

The route diverts through South Croydon rather than tackling the long drag up the Purley Way, thus missing the site of the old Croydon Airport from which so many of WB’s foreign adventures began. In Purley we rejoin the A23, motor through Coulsdon, cross the M25 and head through Merstham, Redhill and on to Horley. Flasks of hot chocolate laced with something stronger keep the chills at bay, as Irvine presses on to the checkpoint in Crawley High Street. We’ve made it to the George Hotel in just two hours.

A welcome bacon roll, a top-up of water (for the car, not us) and we’re back on the road, leaving the A23 at Pease Pottage to join picturesque B-roads and head into the beautiful Sussex countryside. At Handcross and Staplefield large crowds and local car clubs welcome us with cheers, and my face begins to ache from smiling… Through Cuckfield and on to Burgess Hill the Panhard is cracking on, but my colleagues warn that Clayton Hill and the South Downs await.

Momentum is key and, with so few revs available, downchanges on ascents are to be avoided. But we catch older cars, and thus earlier starters, just as we begin the ascent. The climb becomes a crawl, but as oil and water temperatures rise The Old Lady never stutters. We reach the top with a cheer from the volunteer marshals and swoop down to the A23 and the run into Brighton.

Joggers and dogs scatter as we trundle through Preston Park, make our checkpoint and then head through Brighton’s dingy streets. It’s not a race, but the competitive spirit is inevitable and there’s little quarter given as we cut past traffic queues of ‘moderns’. No one seems to mind, goodwill being on overflow for this special occasion.

On to Madeira Drive and the seafront. The sonorous tones of dear old Brian Jones welcome us, just three and a half hours after he’d seen us off from Hyde Park. Irvine is delighted; his best run yet from half a dozen attempts. It’s not quite 11am as we park up, with only about 10 cars ahead of us.

The 1902 Darracq of Allan White had been the first of a remarkable 341 of the 385 starters to complete the 60 miles before the 4.30pm deadline. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason was among the field as, too, was celebrated cinematic icon Genevieve, a 1904 Darracq.

For the first time in its 117-year history, commemorating the original Emancipation Run of November 1896, an official competitive element was included. A regularity test involving cars averaging a precise speed between two controls was a welcome addition, the 1902 Mors of Philip Oldman claiming the inaugural trophy.

But the star feature of the day was a trio of fabulous racing Napiers, lined up together on the event for the first time and recreating the team that contested the Gordon Bennett Cup races of the early 20th Century. The trio included the 6.5-litre Napier in which S?F?Edge won the 1902 race between Paris and Innsbruck, the first international victory for a British car – and painted in glorious British Racing Green to boot. It was one of many heart-warming sights on a glorious autumn morning. Damien Smith