Erin Baker – Holding up Ken Bruce in a 116‑year‑old car

Since then, every year, as many pre-1905 cars as are able muster in the pre-dawn darkness in Hyde Park for the start of the Bonhams London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, supported by Hiscox.

I joined their number last Sunday, in a 1900 Daimler: 6 horsepower, two cylinders, four forward gears, one driver and three passengers.

Cold doesn’t begin to describe the temperature that seeped through every possible crack in my nine thermal layers of clothing as I watched John Worth, the car’s owner, light the platinum rods that would heat the cylinders, with a match. He then pumped the fuel pressure, primed the carburettor and cranked the engine several times before it chugged willingly into life.

At 7.14am, candles in the beautiful glass lanterns fore and aft flickering, we drove across the start line and out onto London’s thankfully deserted roads, past Buckingham Palace, rose-pink against the rising sun, over Westminster Bridge past lines of chilly spectators, and south through London’s sleepy boroughs.
With a top speed of about 24mph downhill, but less than half that uphill, we settled in for the journey. By Streatham my bottom lip had frozen stiff and I’d lost the feeling in my fingers and toes. But the Daimler – the Land Rover Defender of its day – chugged on, unperturbed, while cars just one or two years younger zipped past us (the Daimler was three years old by 1900 and just 12 months later, rival models were posting speeds of 40mph).

At the Harrods-sponsored Crawley pitstop (fashioned form a Honda dealership) I took the high wooden steering wheel. It took both hands to slot one lever from neutral to drive. I depressed the stiff metal clutch pedal, slotted a second lever into first gear and tried to ease slowly off the clutch. We jerked forward and out onto the road.
No throttle pedal, just a chain on the steering column to engage or shut down the second cylinder for acceleration, and a little metal button on the floor to stop the revs dropping too low.

Changing up gears presented a minor problem, due to the stiff clutch and my short legs, but down-changes were just impossible: the clutch needed gentle feathering but sometimes the next gear slotted in, and sometimes the transmission graunched and grumbled and I had to come to a complete halt, take my foot off the brake and re-engage first gear before we could continue. I didn’t dare look at the build-up of traffic behind me, although my passengers helpfully yelled at one point that I was holding up Ken Bruce. In a bus.

Still, the Daimler was more accomplished than I, and we made it across the finish line on Madeira Drive at 1pm. An extraordinary achievement for the 400 pre-1905 cars even to make it to the start line; an awe-inspring sight to see so many of them cross the finish line after 60 miles, and surely one of the best ways to celebrate 120 years of personal four-wheeled liberty.