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Veteran car run ( London to Brighton)


richardmorris

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Still going through Horley!

I left staplefield at 12.30 when I could no longer operate my camera for cold fingers!

 

Here's a rover.

 

 

 

Oh and on the way there I overtook a meschersmitt on the m25 whilst ride of the valkyries was on the stereo! Gave it a toot on the horn and he waved, I floored the accelerator - merc changed down to 3rd at 75 and we took off.

Saw it again at the village green in a convoy of them.

 

I also saw a 62 reg Range Rover detonate its engine quite spectacularly near chobham services. He pulled off the sliproad from the services I think as I passed. Then decided my 75 was too sedate and changed lanes and floored it. I and everyone else behind disappeared in a cloud of thick smoke that followed him for half a mile before I passed him on the hard shoulder. Smelt like oil not fuel.

 

As I was heading back home up the m23 there was a veteran car heading south on the hard shoulder with a backup car following with its hazard on. I presume it had got lost!

 

Quite a fun day really.

post-8687-0-50821000-1509909846_thumb.jpeg

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Quite sad to see the number of breakdowns along the brief bit of route I drove, there were 3 different RAC vans in attendance at one popular breaking down spot!

 

You should see how many only make it a hundred yards or so out of Hyde Park!  Most unfortunate was a very large Gerrman registered beast with a full complement of passengers which lost one of its grand brass headlights, which got trapped underneath, dragged along the ground for 30 yards, smashed to bits and as it made its escape from under the car punctured an oil tank or the sump or similar.  That was actaully a rather horrible thing to watch happen as it all took about 10 seconds and was almost played out in slow motion.

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You should see how many only make it a hundred yards or so out of Hyde Park!  Most unfortunate was a very large Gerrman registered beast with a full complement of passengers which lost one of its grand brass headlights, which got trapped underneath, dragged along the ground for 30 yards, smashed to bits and as it made its escape from under the car punctured an oil tank or the sump or similar.  That was actaully a rather horrible thing to watch happen as it all took about 10 seconds and was almost played out in slow motion.

Nasty, but easy to prevent if you check the car before driving. I expect more common maladies are carb blockages and overheating.

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Awful news regarding the benz crash. Hopefully all involved make a full recovery, and the press and political bodies don't go off on one regarding historics. I've seen it too many times if I'm honest... impatient folk taking chances and risks to pass slow moving vintage vehicles. I certainly hope this was the case..

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Most likely this regular entrant.

 

Benz_10HP_Tonneau_1902_07-11-2010_14-31-

 

Horrible stuff, hope they pull through... :(

Awful, and no belts or crash protection to speak of.

at staplefield I saw a near miss when a well intentioned modern slammed on its brakes to let a Morgan out from the side road. The veteran following did its best to stop but had to drive on to the wrong side of the road to avoid a bump.

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Very sad. I has a passenger ride in a 1905 Briton (actually called a Little Briton) earlier this year, and on a tiny backroad in the middle of nowhere, we still almost came a cropper because of someone in a modern. They just stopped in the middle of the road in front of us! People have no idea that stopping is just generally not an option. Swerving is still pretty risky. 

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Very sad. I has a passenger ride in a 1905 Briton (actually called a Little Briton) earlier this year, and on a tiny backroad in the middle of nowhere, we still almost came a cropper because of someone in a modern. They just stopped in the middle of the road in front of us! People have no idea that stopping is just generally not an option. Swerving is still pretty risky.

 

Quite,

 

Many of the ones I saw today just had a hand brake. I.e. A big lever.

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But even that doesn't tell you about the materials. On the Briton, the brakes are brass on brass. The handbrake operates one rear brake, the footbrake operates the other rear brake. No front brakes. You have two brakes so you can switch to the other one when the first one overheats. Stopping power is minimal at best. Makes an Austin Seven look like a bleedin' F1 car.

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Just to steer the conversation back to nice things, I think this Panhard (the top one ) is the one found by Steady Barker back in the '50s.

He was driving through Spain in the 1922 Peugeot and was stopped somewhere having a drink in a cafe when an old giffer approached and made a fuss of the car. He told Steady that he owned 'an old car' too. He scurried off, promising he'd be back soon. Steady was expecting some dull old Citroen Cloverleaf or something, and a few minutes later this perfectly preserved Panhard pulled up. The chap had had it for years, maybe even from new. iirc he had been a doctor and did his rounds in it at the turn of the century and since retirement just got it out once a week to go shopping or whatever. Anyway, eventually it was liberated and it's now owned by a chap in Sussex.

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  • 4 months later...

Without wishing to cast any aspersions, I have been told by several people it was simply a case of driver error on the part of the Benz pilot, at the top of a steep hill that is not part of the normal route, and the car simply got away from them, running in neutral, with no chance of stopping. Sad, but these things happen I suppose.

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Did they ever find out what caused the accident with the Benz?  I'm struggling to find owt on Google.

 

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/london-brighton-veteran-car-run-13864804

 

https://tinyurl.com/y9b2c5xg

 

The Benz drifted across into the oncoming lane as it tried to avoid running into the back of a slowed vehicle

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