Edwardian Cars

One of the short handicap races at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in June 1993 included an award for the first Edwardian (1905 to 1918) car to finish. Here are two of the eligible cars at Foulston's chicane during the race.

The leading car is the 1912 Abbott-Detroit of David White that the programme of the event says has a 4.7 litre Continental engine. That car is being followed by the 1913 Overland of John Brydon, and the only information about this car in the programme is that it has a 4.5 litre engine, though the DVLA record says that it is a 1915 car with an engine of 4,490cc.

French Edwardian Cars

These two cars took part in the 4-Lap Handicap Race for Edwardian Cars at the VSCC's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in August 1992.

This car is listed in the programme of the event as Richard Black's 9,500cc 1906/11 Clement Special

This car is listed as John Brydon's 9,000cc 1903/10 CGV Special

A note in the programme about the race says this about the two cars:

 'There are two French cars on the entry list for this race, and both are powered by Simplex T-head side-valve engines of nine litres or more. Richard Black's 1906 Clement and the 1903 CGV (Charron-Giradot-Voigt) of John Brydon are fitted with these American engines because the original units are not available. The CGV has a two-seat Grand Prix-type body modelled on that fitted to Giradot's car in the 1905 French Gordon Bennett Eliminating Trials.'

The DVLA record shows the Clement as a 1906 Clement Talbot, a company that originally sold Clement Bayard cars which had been built in France. The company later became STD Motors (Sunbeam Talbot Darracq), then simply Talbot, and eventually Sunbeam Talbot.

I've been able to find out very little about the CGV, but on 12 August 2017 I showed a photograph of another CGV that I'd taken at Donington Park in 2007.

Lorraine Dietrich CR2

This car took part in The Edwardian Race at the VSCC's SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in June 2008.

It's the 8,620cc 1905 Lorraine Dietrich CR2 of John Brydon, but there's no other information about the car in the programme of the event. There's a number 97 on the car bonnet, and a 199 attached to the front of the car which I presume is the number it was intended to have at this meeting, but it's actually numbered 114 in the programme.

On 1 July 2013 I showed a photograph that I took of this car at the 2006 Donington Park SeeRed meeting.

Edwardian Cars

This is another of the Edwardian (cars built between January 1905 and December 1918) cars seen at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2006.

It's a 1905 Lorraine Dietrich CR2 entered by John Brydon and driven in the Edwardian Race by Richard Black.

Edwardian Cars

The Veteran Car Club of Great Britain and the Vintage Sports Car Club state that the dates for which cars are eligible to be defined as Veteran, Edwardian or Vintage are as follows:

Veteran are cars built up to and including December 1904

Edwardian are cars built from January 1905 to December 1918

Vintage are cars built from January 1919 to December 1930

VSCC race meetings frequently include races for Edwardian cars, usually of short duration in deference to the age of the cars competing. The photograph below is of one such car, a 1906 Renault AK GP car entered and driven by John Brydon at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2006.