Free to watch on Madeira Drive, Sunday 1 November, 10am to 4.30pm. Clayton Hill and an A23 slip at Pyecombe close for the cars; no Brighton to Lewes trains.

The RM Sotheby’s London to Brighton Veteran Car Run finishes on Madeira Drive on Sunday 1 November 2026. Watching it is free, the first cars appear just before 10am, and the finish paddock closes at 4.30pm. The one rule that trips people up every year: if your vehicle is not on the run, you are not getting onto Madeira Drive. Come on foot.

Updated 20 October: road orders for the route are now published. West Sussex has given notice it will close Clayton Hill (A273) at Pyecombe northbound, 7am to 5pm, and National Highways intends to close the A23 northbound slip to the A273 at Pyecombe, 6am to 9pm. On the railway, buses replace trains between Brighton and Lewes all day, and Victoria trains run via Hove. Still no Madeira Drive closure notice from the city council.

Updated 29 September: the organisers say the oldest known surviving Rolls-Royce, a 1904 car, will run this year; still no road closure order for 1 November on the council’s register.

Every time and figure below comes from the Royal Automobile Club’s own event pages, the council’s own 2026 events programme and the published road and rail notices, first checked on 4 September 2026 and re-checked on 20 October.

The times that matter in Brighton

What When Where
First cars leave Hyde Park from sunrise, about 6.56am Serpentine Road, London
Last car leaves London about 8.30am Hyde Park
Official finish opens 10.00am Madeira Drive
Slower cars still arriving through the day Madeira Drive
Finish paddock closes 4.30pm Madeira Drive

The organisers list the Brighton finish as 1 November 2026, 10:00 to 16:30, Madeira Drive, with cars beginning to arrive from 10am “with the slower vehicles arriving as late as 4.30pm”. So there is no single moment to turn up for. Mid-morning gets you the fast steam and petrol cars; the middle of the day is the busiest; late afternoon gets you the ones that have had a hard time of it, which is often the better watch.

Where to stand

There are two official paddocks on the whole 60-mile route, and one of them is ours: Hyde Park at the start and Madeira Drive at the finish, both barriered so you can see the vehicles at close quarters. Madeira Drive is the strip of seafront road below the Marine Parade cliff, east of the Palace Pier, running towards Black Rock.

The council’s programme books the run onto Madeira Drive and Black Rock with 1,200 participants, with the build starting on 29 October and derig on 2 November. That is a three-day occupation of the road, not a one-day one, so the seafront is affected either side of the Sunday.

Good free vantage points, in rough order of how early you need to be there:

  • Madeira Drive itself, behind the barriers. Busiest near the finish gantry at the western end.
  • The Madeira Terrace walkway and Marine Parade above it, looking down on the cars as they come in. You get the whole line rather than one car at a time.
  • The seafront approach further west, near the Aquarium roundabout, where the cars come off Grand Junction Road and turn in.

Access, parking and getting there

The organisers put it bluntly: cars and bikes not associated with the run and without valid identification will not be allowed access to Madeira Drive, and supporters are told to arrive on foot.

That means the sensible plan is train or bus to the centre and walk down. Brighton station is about 20 minutes’ walk from the finish. If you must drive, park well back from the seafront and expect the streets nearest Madeira Drive to be busy from mid-morning; the resident zones stay in force on a Sunday in most of central Brighton, so read our Brighton parking guide before you pick a street.

Road closures on the way in. The city council has not published a closure notice for Madeira Drive; when we checked the Public Notice Portal on 20 October, the only Veteran Car Run orders near Brighton were on the route through West Sussex. Worth knowing from last year’s programme: the council noted no road closure on the build day, so any closure is the event day itself rather than the whole build period.

  • Clayton Hill (A273), Pyecombe: closed to northbound traffic from Underhill Lane southwards to School Lane, with a 30mph limit, 7am to 5pm on 1 November. West Sussex also closes Cuckfield Road (B2115) and High Street (B2036) in Cuckfield to northbound traffic. Access to homes is kept (West Sussex County Council notice, 15 October).
  • A23 at Pyecombe: National Highways intends to close the A23 northbound slip road to the A273 at Pyecombe Interchange, between 6am and 9pm at most, with lower speed limits on the A23 southbound and both lay-bys shut. Traffic for the A273 beyond Pyecombe village is sent north to Muddleswood (B2117) and back on the B2117, B2116 and A273 (National Highways notice NH/SE/2026/A23/71, 8 October).

If you are driving into Brighton from the north that morning, the A23 southbound is not closed in the notice, but it carries the lower limit from Pyecombe.

No trains between Brighton and Lewes on Sunday 1 November. Buses replace them, with a mix of fast and all-stations buses. Trains from London Victoria to Brighton are diverted via Hove, with longer journeys, and also call at Wivelsfield, Preston Park and Hove; fewer trains run between Brighton and Hove (National Rail). The roadworks and travel page carries any late changes.

What you are actually looking at

The run is the descendant of the Emancipation Run of 1896, held to celebrate the Locomotives on Highways Act, which raised the speed limit for light locomotives from 4mph to 14mph and abolished the requirement for a man to walk ahead of the vehicle waving a red flag. The Royal Automobile Club has run it since 1930 and calls it the world’s longest-running motoring event.

The entry rule is strict and it is why the field looks the way it does: every vehicle must have been built before 1905. Expect petrol, steam and electric cars, plus early motorcycles and penny farthings. Hyde Park has been the start since 1936.

It is not a race. There are no published finishing positions. Anyone who reaches Madeira Drive by 4.30pm gets a finisher’s medal, and that is the whole competition. In 2023 the organisers reported nearly 350 starters and 328 finishers, 301 of them motor vehicles and 27 motorcycles or cyclists, which tells you how much of the field breaks down on the way. The 2026 entry list is published on the organisers’ site and was still growing when we checked.

The car the organisers are leading on this year is Rolls-Royce chassis 20154, which they describe as “the oldest known surviving Rolls-Royce”. It was built in November 1904, the fourth of 17 Type A 10hp cars, with Park Phaeton bodywork by Barker. Its owner, Terry Bramall, has had it restored to its original primrose yellow with its original Manchester registration, M 612. It goes on show at the free St James’s Motoring Spectacle in London on Saturday 31 October, then runs to Brighton the next day. As with every car, there is no set arrival time.

Practical notes

  • It is free. There is no ticket for spectating at either paddock.
  • It is cold. Early November on an exposed seafront, standing still for two hours. Dress for it.
  • Toilets and food are available from the Madeira Drive restaurants and kiosks, per the organisers.
  • Photography is easiest from the terrace above, because you are not shooting through barriers or heads.
  • The run is the last item in a week of Royal Automobile Club events, from 28 October onwards. All of the rest are in London, so Brighton gets the Sunday and nothing else.

Nothing about the Brighton finish is still TBC. The date, the times and the location are all confirmed by the organisers and by the council’s own booking. The only outstanding item is whether the city council publishes a Madeira Drive closure; the route closures in West Sussex are already notified.