Of the 401 ancient motorcars that started the Royal Automobile Club’s annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run this past Sunday, 315 made it all the way to claim a finishers’ medal.
For those lining the route from the nation’s capital to the coast, the event not only provided a parade of early automotive history, but the conclusion to a seven-day celebration that includes an auction, lectures, forum, car shows, awards presentations and an art exhibit.
The run is staged to commemorate the Emancipation Run of November, 14, 1896, which celebrated the Locomotives on the Highway Act that raised the speed limit for “light locomotives” from 4 mph to 14 and ended the need for these vehicles to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag of warning.
The run has been staged annual since 1930 except for war years and 1947, when gasoline was rationed in England.
In recent years, part of the run has been the Chopard Regularity Trial, won this year by Robert Abrey in a n 1899 Daimler.
