Vauxhall 6hp
Danny drives through Vauxhall, in a Vauxhall, built in Vauxhall
It’s a funny old game this classic car lark. When I stuck my first £150 into the hands of a man selling an Allegro LE in 1989, I was only interested in the cars I remembered in my immediate past. They still form the centre foreground of my enthusiasm, cars of the Seventies and Eighties, but things are changing.
As I have delved deeper into my own passion for old motors I have found myself experimenting with eras. I have enjoyed cars that weren’t even on the drawing board when I bought that Allegro… MG ZTS spring to mind. I have also found myself increasingly looking backwards to periods before I was born. There was a time when I wouldn’t have dreamt of owning a Fifties classic, now I have two. As for pre-war, back then I had no interest at all… now, I can’t wait to go on another VSCC event in a fascinating, fabulous pre-war motor. The more I drive them, the more they appeal and the variety available is endless. It’s a bit obsessive.
So when Simon Hucknall, from Vauxhall, offered me a drive in its Heritage 1904 6HP on the 2017 London to Brighton, I said ‘yes’ before he had finished his sentence. I was summoned for training, at Bicester Heritage. Driving the beast requires you to forget everything you know about driving a car. Here’s why.
So, think you can drive?
First, to start. You open the fuel tap and prime the carb by turning the starter handle with the ignition off (you have to hold open a spring vale to get petrol into the cylinder as well... yes, it has one cylinder). Then you check the throttle is open the right amount and switch on the ignition. Then you crank the engine over (big handle inserted into the side of the car (it looks like you are winding it up). With luck, it will spring into life.
Driving. There is a tiller, no steering wheel. Two pedals on the floor. On the left is first gear,
depress it and off you go, release it and you freewheel. On the right is the footbrake. Beside the driver is the handbrake and then, on the steering column (which is upright and comes out of the floor next to the driver’s right foot) is a big brass knob. The throttle. Clockwise increases the flow of petrol, anti-clockwise strangles it (this is how you stop the engine too).
Still on the column, under the throttle knob is another handle. This is second gear, push it forward to engage (but do not attempt to do this while first gear is engaged, you might break the gearbox). The final controls are the light switch (under the seat) and the advance and retard knob pull. Three clicks up advances the timing, push back down to retard. All this cost £150 when new, with the promise that you could ‘get up any hill in London’. Let’s hope so.
Have you got all that then?
Vauxhall workshop legend, Terry Forder, is a very patient man but after an hour I am allowed to fly solo. Subsequent lessons with Simon at Luton (including driving at Luton Hoo House, through its great park – very Edwardian!) sees me L2B ready. My favourite films are Genevieve and The Titfield Thunderbolt, so Michael Dennison is a bit of a role model. How he managed to not look completely frozen in Genevieve is beyond me though. The 6am drive into Hyde Park is proper brass monkeys. However, lined up by the Serpentine with 400 other veterans soon warms the cockles. Genevieve herself is here as are a colourful mix of eccentric engineering marvels. No two cars are the same… some are steam driven, there is even an ancient electric car. All are fascinating and all road legal. This is the oldest car event in the world and it is perfectly bonkers. We’re off and Simon is driving. We are both dressed like a couple of Edwardian hoorays and it, for once, is entirely appropriate. We pass DJ Chris Evans who is driving a bus full of winning Children in Need bidders, I wave at Proddrive’s Dave Richards and Edd China, and they completely don’t recognise me. Then we do battle with South London passing early casualties, including a Renault on fire. Over Westminster Bridge we head along the south bank towards Vauxhall. This 1904 Vauxhall was born here!
‘We are dressed up like a couple of Edwardian Hoorays!’
I hate my commute
The traffic is appalling with diversions and road closures but the Vauxhall handles it. Bobbling about with its single cylinder heart punching us from under the seat. It takes three hours to reach Reigate Hill, we crawl down it. Two hours later a Mercedes will come to grief here in the only fatal accident the L2B has ever seen. Our thoughts are with the family of the deceased and we hope that the repercussions will be appropriate. In any other country on the planet, this event would mean road closures and a real sense of occasion.
At our halfway stop in Crawley we are greeted by Harrods staff with coffee and pastries. By now I have had to jump out of the cockpit a couple of times and jog alongside the 6hp up hills so I am ‘pastry nuetral’ (surely?). My turn to drive.
Slowly I go from tentative to intuitive and I begin to settle into a rhythm. I have driven steam trains before; driving this is the closest on-road vehicle I have ever experienced that comes near to the steam routine. Everything needs to be prepared in advance. Gradients both up and down, junctions, curves. It is THE single most involving driving experience I have had this year.
We wave and honk our horn at around 10,000 well-wishers who come out every year to line the route and reaching Madeira Drive in Brighton is emotional. This car has completed the L2B 55 times now – it has only failed twice. I’m glad I’ve helped it put on a good show. Thanks Vauxhall.