London to Brighton Veteran Car Run

The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is the longest-running motoring event in the world. The first run was in 1896, and it has taken place most years since its initial revival in 1927. To qualify, the cars must have been built before 1905. It is also the world's largest gathering of veteran cars – 443 started in 2005, 484 in 2009, compared to 37 starters in 1927, 51 starters in 1930 and 131 in 1938.

It takes place, currently, on the first Sunday in November and starts at sunrise from Hyde Park, London and mostly follows the old A23 road to finish at Brighton – a distance of 54 miles (87 km). There are two 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, also the venue for Brighton's other big motoring event, the Brighton Speed Trials.

The organisers 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 (many do not) before 4:30 pm are awarded a medal.

The first run took place on 14 November 1896, a wet Saturday. Organised by Harry J. Lawson, and named "The Emancipation Run", it was a celebration of the recently passed Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which had replaced the restrictive Locomotive Acts of 1861, 1865 and 1878 and increased the speed limit to 14 mph (23 km/h). Since 1878 the speed limit had been 4 mph (6 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3 km/h) in the town and an escort had been required to walk 20 yards (20 m) ahead of the vehicle. The 1865 act had required the escort to carry a red flag at a distance of 60 yards (50 m).

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 competitors gathered outside the Metropole Hotel, with the cars accompanied by a "flying escort" – estimated by one witness as "probably 10,000" – of pedal cyclists, recreational cycling having become popular with the English in the final decades of the 19th century. A total of 33 motorists set off from London for the coast and 17 arrived in Brighton. The first of the cars set off from London at 10:30 am and the first arrival in Brighton, by a Duryea Motor Wagon, beating the next closest Brighton arrivals by more than an hour. Two Duryea cars participated in the run, marking the first appearance of American motor vehicles in Europe.

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Wikipedia