Just in time for Regent Street

This year’s Regent Street Motor Show, ahead of the annual Brighton Run, featured a significant contingent of cars attempting the Run for the first time in their history.

Peugeot-daimler

The first car to be sold and used in Italy was the oldest machine on the Brighton Run and was still being finished two days earlier.

‘It was built in France in 1892 and delivered to Gaetano Rossi di Schio, the brother of my great-grandfather, on January 2, 1893,’ said Alessandro Rossi, who was driving the car. ‘Gaetano only kept it two years before replacing it, but it was the first car in Italy – a Peugeot with a rear-mounted Daimler engine. It ended up in a museum fairly early on in its life, where soldiers raided it for parts during World War One. It was sold on in the Fifties to another museum in part exchange for a new Fiat Millecento.

‘The museum restored the bodywork in 2007, but obviously with the mechanical parts still missing it wasn’t running. I found out about the car and persuaded them to let me restore it, given my family’s connection, and Peugeot lent its support too with parts supply. We were still finishing it at midnight two days ago, with the truck waiting outside to take it to England.’

Renault Type N

‘This car came to Australia in 1903 via Claude Dean, the first car dealer in Western Australia,’ said Alan Tribe, who had brought it from the other side of the world to run it for the first time in 95 years.

‘It was used by the government to inspect the Rabbit-proof Fence, which ran the full length of Western Australia to keep a plague of rabbits away from agricultural areas. It didn’t work and neither did the car – it ran over a tree stump during the inspection, snapped an axle and ended up abandoned on a farm until the Fifties. Then it was bought by a veteran car collector who spent 45 years restoring it. I bought it from him, finished the restoration and brought it to London today to drive for the first time.’