The historic Brooklands motor racing circuit echoed to the sounds of the past on February 16, when a group of Talbots and other historic cars celebrated the 100th anniversary of the occasion in 1913 when Percy Lambert became the first person in the world ever to travel 100 miles in one hour.
The cars, provided by members of the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq Register, were flagged off near the original attempt’s start line on the Railway Straight of the Brooklands circuit at 12:43 p.m.—the exact time of the start of Lambert’s original run—by Lord Shrewsbury, whose great-grandfather performed the same task 100 years ago.
From there, they headed to the modern circuit at Mercedes-Benz World where they tackled the task of jointly clocking up the same distance as Lambert had covered in his one-hour run. Each group of cars was led by the famous racing Talbot BGH 23, the fastest four-seat sports car ever to lap Brooklands.
Over the next hour, they covered an aggregate 103.76 miles—exactly the distance covered by Lambert on his run—with Brooklands Museum’s mighty 24-liter Napier-Railton (the fastest car ever to tour the circuit) joining the cavalcade and crossing the finish line to complete that distance at precisely 1:43 p.m.
Watching the celebration were 12 members of the Lambert family, together with a large crowd of motoring enthusiasts. Later, the Talbots, Sunbeams and Darracqs were all parked up on the Members’ Banking of the circuit for a photo shoot, and their drivers and passengers gathered in the Brooklands Clubhouse for an illustrated talk on Lambert given by David Jones. Also on display outside the Clubhouse and on the Banking for the photo shoot was the partly completed replica of Lambert’s car, which is currently being built by Talbot specialist Ian Poulson.
