| Where: | London starting at Hyde Park & finishing at Brighton on the Seafront |
| When: | 1st Sunday in November |
| Time: | 2023 times:7am-8.40am at Hyde Park; 10.10am-4.30pm at Brighton (times vary slightly from one year to another so double-check the event's own website) |
Organised by the RAC, this is the World’s longest established motoring event with participants from all over the planet. The sixty mile route starts at Hyde Park in London and ends on Brighton seafront with lots of thrills and spills on the way – expect around 500 entrants with their teams. While there are plenty of rallies all around the year where you can see veteran cars on display at locations around the country, there are far fewer opportunities to see them in action and this is a great chance to see them on the go. All the participating vehicles are pre-1905 and it’s an endurance test rather than a race; the entrants are set off in batches, with the older vehicles starting first, and there are even a few bicycles and motorbikes. It’s held in November to remember the Emancipation Run of 1896 which commemorated the speed limit raising of the Locomotives on the Highway Act ( to a heady 14 miles per hour!) . The Act also removed the need to have your car preceded by a man bearing a red flag.
Helpful Hints
You can watch for free anywhere along the route (see website for full details).
In 2024 it will be on Sunday November 3rd.
Click here for the event website :http://www.vccofgb.co.uk/lontobri/
We’d have had to rise at 5am to catch the start in Hyde Park, and so we didn’t. We drove down to Crawley to see the race there instead. It was a wonderful morning. I had no idea how many veteran cars existed, and to see them chugging through a modern town was amazing. They were beautiful vehicles, shining with polished brass and gleaming paintwork. The drivers and their passengers were all outside, braced against a very chilly November morning. Some of them were so wrapped only the eyes were showing; one woman seemed to be wearing a sheep. The race was funneled through Crawley High Street, where there were small bands playing jazz, and a place to queue to have photos taken with a veteran car, etc. It was a really good way to spend Sunday morning!