Veteran Car Club of Great Britain - The
- Jessamine Court, 15 High Street, Ashwell, Hertfordshire, SG7 5NL. ENGLAND
The Aims of the Club
To encourage the use and assist in the acquisition, restoration, preservation, exhibition and maintenance of Veteran and Edwardian motor vehicles.
Veteran - Vehicles built up-to and including December 1904
Edwardian - Vehicles built from January 1905 and up-to and including December 1918
The Club
Patron
The position of Patron is the highest honor the Club can bestow; it is held today by HRH Prince Michael of Kent.
The Club's Car
The Club's Car is a 1902 Wolseley with twin cylinders, rated at 10hp and fitted with a Tonneau type body.
It is driven by members on many events throughout the year including the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. After a major overhaul it was entered and completed the 2007 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run driven by our President, of the time.
Sections - Events
The Club is divided into geographical areas in the UK and are as follows: - Scotland Section, North West Section, North East Section, Midland Section, Mid East Section, South West Section and South East Section. In 2009 a new Section was formed, this being the IRISH SECTION as a Special Interest Section. The Irish Section covers, as the name states, the whole of Éire/Ireland. Northern Ireland is covered by the North West Section. Special Interest Sections is a section where the main area of the section is outside of Great Britain. See map to the right.
Each Section has one Main (Annual) and a number of Minor Events each year.
An Annual Event normally covers a weekend (Friday to Sunday, Saturday being a full event day), and each year there is at least one event that covers a week. The Annual Events may have a competitive element attached to them.
The range of events, being either annual or minor are too vast to record here, they range from visits to Motoring Museums, Historical Buildings or just a social ride in the country to a lunch stop through some of the prettiest countryside to be seen, like the motoring days of the past.
An Headquarter's event is run about every two or so years. JOGLE (John O'Groats to Land's End), 1000mile Trial, The Red Flag Rally and The 75th Event in Wales were all 5 or more days events run by HQ.
The Club's Gazette
The Club gazette "VETERAN CAR" is a pocket size, bimonthly gazette that is well published. Each excellent issue has approximately seventy pages and in full colour.
The contents includes reports of past events normally with photographs, calendar of forthcoming events, service and repair hints, readers letters, quizzes and member's cars sales & wants and for all those period motoring related items.
Articles include the reports of motoring experiences taken from period diaries, letters and news reports. With the odd pieces of information that are of interests to all enthusiast of early motoring it make a very good read.
Membership
The Club has seven types of Membership. Only Full, Family, Bearer (Corporate) Members can enter a car in a Club event, but they can be driven by a Associate Members.
You do not have to own a Veteran and Edwardian car to become a Member; almost half our Members are Associates and have a vital part to play in the smooth running of the events.
At present the membership is running around 1500. Membership is world wide in the Club.
History of the Club
The Club was founded in 1930 after the London to Brighton Run of that year. Three participants, S.C.H. (Sammy) Davis, J.A.(Jackie) Masters and Capt. J.H. Wylie gathered in the Courties Bar, Old Ship Hotel, Brighton and decided to form a Club for veteran cars, The Veteran Car Club of Great Britain.
A Club office was set up in London and finally settling in Fitzhardinge Street, W1. During the mid '70s, the Club purchased its own building, Jessamine House, in Ashwell, Hertfordshire close to the Cambridgeshire borders.
From 1976 the Club was run from Jessamine House but the growth of the archive information made the premises very cramped.
In the grounds and to the rear of Jessamine House there was a large tithe barn; in 1991 this was converted into the Headquarters that we have to-day. From the time of the move to the new building, Jessamine House was leased to a local College. The College left in 2006 and the building was sold in 2007.
The Club till the mid 2002 run events, the Gazette, this website, carried out dating, etc. In 2002 a limited company was formed for the purpose of controlling/running the named items and removing them from the control of the Members Club. The name of the company was Veteran Car Services Limited, in 2010 the name was changed to Veteran Car Company Limited
The Club up to the '50s accepted only veteran cars, up to the end of 1904. Some time in the 50s the closing date moved to 1916. In the 60s or 70s the dates were again changed to those we have now. No national motoring Club, like the The Veteran Car Club of Great Britain, covered cars built before 1919. During those early times cars that were built from our closing dates to 1919 were being broken up for spares for models that continued after the First World War (i.e. Rolls Royce's Silver Ghosts and Ford's Model T's to name only two) or being scrapped.
Now we are pleased to accept all cars manufactured before 1919 into the Club (conditions apply).