Seventeen-year-old automotive student to lead London to Brighton Run

Britain’s passage of the Locomotives on the Highway Act 115 years ago might have passed quietly into the history books, if it hadn’t been for a few dozen enthusiasts who took part in a celebratory drive from central London to the seaside town of Brighton, some 60 miles to the south. The act raised the speed limit for “road locomotives” – i.e., automobiles – from 4 MPH to 14 MPH. Although the requirement that vehicles be preceded by a red-flag-waving man on foot had been abolished 18 years earlier, the revelers made their point by beginning their Emancipation Run by destroying a red flag.

That symbolic act remains a part of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, which has been run every year since 1927 (interrupted only by Word War II). This year’s run begins precisely at sunrise on Sunday, November 6, when more than 500 pre-1905 vehicles from the U.K. and 21 other countries set out from central London, making their eventual way to Brighton. Germany is being honored as the country of celebration, as are sponsors Mercedes-Benz and Bosch, two companies marking their 125th anniversaries this year.

The oldest vehicles are given the earliest start times. This year, the first car away will be an 1894 Benz Velo, driven by one of the youngest drivers in the field, a 17-year-old automotive student from North Yorkshire named Oliver Wright (pictured above). The Velo is believed to be the oldest Benz in existence, and the first four-wheeled model produced by the company. It was one of three cars shipped to Italy in 1894 rumored to have been sold to the Marconi family. It was then imported to the U.K. in a packing crate in 1900 when the family moved to Berkshire. The car stayed in the same crate until 1980 when it was disinterred and sold by Sotheby’s at an auction in Bristol in 1981. Restored for an earlier London to Brighton run, the car now belongs to The Ward Collection, jointly owned by brothers Daniel and Toby Ward. Its 1.5hp engine gives it a top speed of 14.5 MPH.

Another participating vehicle with an interesting story is a 1904 Fiat, which had survived a decade buried at a home on Cape Cod. Mrs. George Agassiz, an American, bought the car while on honeymoon in Italy; unable to find a buyer in 1932, and unwilling to send it to the scrap yard, she buried the Fiat on the grounds of her estate. Ted Robertson, co-founder of the U.S. Vintage Sports Car Club, exhumed the car in 1942, and bought it for $50. Restored in the early 1990s, it was sold to its current owner in the Netherlands, Jan Brujin, in 2007.

Prominent among this year’s entrants is Nigel Mansell, one of Britain’s best loved and most successful race drivers. The 1992 Formula One World Champion and winner of 31 grands prix will be joined by Mike Penning, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport and member of Parliament for Hemel Hempstead. The duo will pilot a 1902 Mercedes Simplex.

What’s believed to be the world’s first electric front-wheel-drive hybrid car will be making an appearance, too. The rare 1900 Lohner-Porsche, conceived and built by Ferdinand Porsche while he was employed by Viennese coachbuilder Jacob Lohner, will be driven by Ernest Piech, Porsche’s grandson, and Andreas Lohner, a member of the coachbuilder’s family. The car employs electric motors in the wheel hubs, and a gasoline engine to charge its weighty battery pack.