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Veteran cars set for a diversion as they rally through Croydon

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Hundred-old-cars will be coming to a street near you next Sunday

Give it a push: West Street has presented problems for the hundred-old-cars on past visits to Croydon

The London to Brighton Veteran Car Rally next Sunday will take a new route as it passes through Croydon.

The world’s longest-running motoring event, which is expected to feature around 500 vintage vehicles, all of them built before 1905, will be chugging and puffing its way from Hyde Park Corner from 7am on November 2, heading south along the old route of the A23 with the first cars expected to reach Norbury by 7.25am.

With the old cars setting off at regular intervals, they are expected to be passing through Thornton Heath and points south for more than three hours, heading through to Coulsdon and onwards.

The new route this year will see the cars bypassing South End; from the roundabout under the Croydon Flyover, instead of turning left up West Street and then right on to South End, the rally will go along Southbridge Road (the A236), rejoining the old road to Brighton just past the Tree House pub.

“We look at the route every year, and this change has been made to save costs and to help the old cars,” a spokesman for the rally organisers told Inside Croydon.

“The fewer turns that these cars have to take, the better. None of them were made after 1905, and cars weren’t built at that time for the kind of road conditions we take for granted today. That brief drag up West Street is slightly uphill, and the right turn by the traffic lights was especially difficult for many of the cars. It also means we can use fewer marshals along that section of the route.”

The organisers will be looking at the new section of the route, and according to the spokesman, if successful, it is likely to be used in future years, too.

The cars will feature a number of celebrity passengers, including two sporting knights who between them have won nine Olympic gold medals, and an America’s Cup: Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Ben Ainslie.

Coming to Croydon


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