Classic car enthusiasts’ attention turned to the UK capital from October 26 to November 1, as London Motor Week 2026 brought a packed programme of high-profile events to the city, including major auctions, Pall Mall’s St James’s Motoring Spectacle and the 130th-anniversary edition of the legendary London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.
Kind weather blessed the week’s grand finale, with cloudless skies over Pall Mall on Saturday and remarkably mild conditions for Sunday’s dawn departure from Hyde Park.
RM Sotheby’s London to Brighton Veteran Car Run
The world’s longest-running motoring event brought London Motor Week 2026 to a close on Sunday November 1, 130 years after the Emancipation Run it commemorates. That first run, on November 14, 1896, celebrated the passing of the Locomotives on Highways Act, which heralded the dawn of British motoring by raising the speed limit for ‘light locomotives’ from 4mph to 14mph and scrapping the requirement for a person to walk ahead of them.
As with the 1896 event, each year’s Veteran Car Run begins with the ceremonial tearing of a red flag – a nod to the flag-waving pedestrian of motoring legend, even if that particular requirement had already been repealed in 1878. This year, the flag-tearing honour fell to Mercedes-Benz Heritage CEO Marcus Breitschwerdt and RAC chairman Duncan Wiltshire. Breitschwerdt was given the honour to mark the 140th anniversary of Carl Benz’s Patent-Motorwagen – an example of which stood at the Hyde Park start line – in a year that also marks a century since the founding of Mercedes-Benz.
Dawn saw a pack of pre-1905 motor and pedal cycles embark on the 60-mile journey to Madeira Drive in Brighton. Just before 7:00am, the first and oldest batch of Veteran cars crossed the start line. Early starters included the Salvesen Steam Car – an archaic, coal-fired machine that has more in common with a railway locomotive than an internal-combustion car. It was joined by a host of primitive motorised tricycles, not dissimilar to Benz’s pioneering three-wheeler. The headline car, however, was the world’s oldest-surviving Rolls-Royce. Finished in its original Primrose Yellow, the 1904 Type A 10hp is the fourth of only 17 examples built and it arrived in Hyde Park fresh from claiming Best in Show at Saturday’s St James’s Concours.
The diverse, 396-car field demonstrated how experimental Victorian- and Edwardian-era motoring was. Few of the cars travelling to Brighton had anything resembling a modern control layout, with many sporting a bewildering array of levers and pedals, with tillers or helms in place of steering wheels. Powertrains were similarly varied, ranging from the aforementioned steam car to petrol- and battery-powered machines.
The entry spanned more than 100 different marques, drawing participants from as far afield as Hong Kong, Australia and Canada, as well as 21 from the US. While many of these pioneering manufacturers have long since vanished into history, others such as Cadillac, Ford, Renault, Peugeot and Rolls-Royce endure today.
Happily, 349 of the 396 starters successfully completed the pilgrimage to Brighton before the 4:30pm deadline, and were duly awarded a finishers’ medal and a warming hot toddy. The first car to reach Madeira Drive was the single-cylinder 1903 Lacoste et Battmann of German entrant Wolfgang Kraemer, which completed the journey in just over three hours.
Several famous faces took part, including Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and gardening broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh, who had also helped judge the previous day’s concours. Land Speed Record holder Andy Green returned at the wheel of a 1904 Stanley steam car. Ironically, the man who broke the 400mph barrier in the JCB Hydromax earlier this year was among the last to reach Brighton. He was simply relieved to make it at all, having failed to finish 12 months earlier when his car’s boiler expired in Brixton.
“Compared to last year… making Brighton is definitely a success story, so I’m very, very happy to be here,” Green said. “This is the only motoring event that I know in the world where thousands and thousands of people turn out, rain or shine, with huge smiles on their faces to watch the cars go by.”
The RAC’s Duncan Wiltshire completed the journey in the Club’s 1901 Mors, which carries the RAC 1 registration, and thanked the 350 volunteer marshals who keep the event running. “This has been an exemplary London to Brighton Veteran Car Run and one of the very best I can remember,” he said.
St James’s Motoring Spectacle
Preceding the Veteran Car Run at London Motor Week 2026 was the St James’s Motoring Spectacle, which saw Pall Mall transformed into a free-to-attend motor show and concours celebrating the past, present and future of the automotive industry.
Held on Saturday October 31, 2026, the Spectacle saw more than 15,000 visitors flock to the famous London street to see over 160 vehicles spanning 140 years of motoring history. The event was officially opened by Karen Scarborough, the Lord Mayor of Westminster, and Duncan Wiltshire.
Over 100 pre-1905 machines taking part in Sunday’s Run were showcased in the St James’s Concours, many accompanied by crews donning period attire. A judging panel that included former Wheeler Dealers presenter Edd China and Alan Titchmarsh presented silverware alongside magnums of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne.
Best of Show was awarded to the world’s oldest-surviving Rolls Royce, the 1904 Type A 10hp. The Overseas Award went to Robin Heringa’s 1904 Soc.Man.d’Armes from the Netherlands, while Andrew Rhind-Tutt’s 1900 De Dion-Bouton ‘Imperial’ took the Historic Award. Malcolm Ginns’ 1902 Panhard et Levassor won the Chairman’s Award, Dee Searle’s 1899 Benz received the Feature Award and the crew of Michael Rogers’ 1904 Siddeley claimed the Motoring Attire Award.
At the other end of the street, visitors could trace the jaw-dropping progression of automotive engineering through a line-up of Formula 1 cars, rally machinery, touring cars and hypercars. Standouts included a 2026 Williams FW48, cars rallied by Britain’s three World Rally Champions – Colin McRae, Richard Burns and newly crowned Elfyn Evans – and Ash Sutton’s record-breaking BTCC Ford Focus ST. The hypercar contingent featured an Aston Martin Valhalla, Bugatti Chiron and Ferrari SF90 XX, while further displays marked 50 years of the Volkswagen Golf GTI and 60 years of the mid-engined supercar.
London Motor Week sales
London Motor Week 2026’s build-up to the Veteran Car Run also featured two major auctions, beginning with Bonhams’ Golden Age of Motoring Sale at New Bond Street on October 30. The sale achieved approximately £2.15m, with 20 of the 22 vehicles consigned finding new owners. This represented a 91 percent sell-through rate, although 14 of the 20 cars sold fell short of their low estimates.
Bonhams’ most lucrative lot was a 1901 Panhard et Levassor Four-Cylinder Cab Phaeton with unusual forward-control Kellner coachwork. It crossed the block for £460,000 against a £300,000-£350,000 estimate. The top-selling Panhard was followed by a 1904 Rochet-Schneider Model 2500 (£425,500) and a 1901 Panhard et Levassor Type A2 (£270,250).
The sale’s star attraction, however, was the Somerset Hoard of seven unrestored Veteran cars that had languished in a barn since around 1939. All seven cars found new homes, selling for £258,533 combined. The top lot was a circa-1902 Progress that more than doubled its lower estimate at £63,250. Read our full 2026 Bonhams Golden Age of Motoring sale report here.
Saturday October 31 saw RM Sotheby’s annual London Sale take place at The Peninsula London hotel. It achieved a staggering £36,550,950 in total sales – up from £23.7m in 2025 – which the auction house described as the highest gross ever achieved by a car auction in Britain. Of the 64 lots offered, 56 sold.
Leading the way was a 2022 Ferrari Daytona SP3 that starred in the final broadcast episode of BBC’s Top Gear. It sold for £8,161,250 against a pre-sale estimate of £7,500,000-£9,500,000. A 2023 Aston Martin Valkyrie set a world auction record for the model at £2,761,250, while Ayrton Senna’s personal ‘hosepipe’ Honda NSX achieved another model record at £871,250. Read our full report here.
RAC Motoring Book of the Year Awards
Automotive publishing was celebrated at the RAC’s annual Motoring Book of the Year Awards, held during London Motor Week 2026 at the Pall Mall clubhouse on October 28. The top prize went to Senna: The Truth by Italian motor sport journalist Franco Nugnes. The book revisits the events surrounding the legendary Brazilian driver’s death at Imola in 1994, drawing on original investigation and first-hand testimony.
The ceremony also saw Russell Hayes become the first author to win two categories in the same year, taking the Motor Cars & Motoring under £100 and no-price-limit awards for The Complete Book of Volkswagen GTI and Aston Martin: The Entire Story respectively. Jaguar historian Paul Skilleter received the Lifetime Achievement Award, while The Art of Racing: Helmets, produced by Magneto publisher Hothouse Media, bagged the inaugural Best Design Award.
