Chuff. An explosion in the single iron cylinder sends out a puff of white smoke from the stubby exhaust pipe. A gnarled hand pulls the starter handle again and the exposed flywheel spins. Chuff, chuff. The elderly man grumbles and wipes his hands on his grease-stained trousers. He puts all his weight behind the next pull and is rewarded when the engine continues running, each individual explosion audible at idle. He climbs aboard the buggy-like vehicle and heads out of the parking lot-only 50 more miles to finish the New London to New Brighton Antique Car Run.
Just before the 20th century, automobiles were considered a menace. Their noise and look frightened horses and their speeds endangered children, bicyclists and pedestrians. Laws were made to keep them at bay, the most famous being the Locomotives of the Highway Act in England. It limited 'light locomotives' to a maximum speed of 4 mph and required that each vehicle be preceded by a man on foot, carrying a red flag. But you can't stop progress and, on November 14, 1896, the requirement for a flagman was eliminated and the speed limit was raised to 14 mph. To celebrate, an 'Emancipation Run' was organized from London to Brighton, on the south coast of England. The distance was 60 miles and 30 vehicles started. Only 14 made it to the finish, but the point was made-the automobile was here to stay.
A commemorative run took place in 1927 and has done so every year since (except during World War II). On a Sunday in November, three- and four-wheel vehicles built before January 1, 1905 gather. Today, more than 500 vehicles and owners from all over the world take part.
Cut to Buffalo, Minnesota, 2007, where a crowd has gathered at Buffalo High School. A barbeque lunch is being served in the gymnasium and an area has been cleared in the parking lot while ragtime music plays through loudspeakers. A local car club has arranged a show. Fat-fendered cars from the 1950s sit next to a few 1960s muscle cars.
Buffalo is 70 miles from New London, Minnesota, from where some even older cars started out at 7 am and the crowd is expecting the first of them to arrive shortly after 11:30. They aren't disappointed when the first 100-year-old car turns into the drive.
Gradually, others arrive. A Reo, a Maxwell, a curve-dash Oldsmobile. Then a couple of single-cylinder Cadillacs and a Buick. There are European-built machines too, including an English 1908 Talbot (now residing in Colorado), a French 1909 Renault (from New Jersey) and a lovely, petite French-built 1911 le Zebre that looks like it was built to four-fifths scale.
Their 120-mile route takes them, at an average of 20 mph, across the Minnesota countryside, from New London to New Brighton, a suburb of Minneapolis. 2007 saw the 21st Antique Car Run, which allows cars, trucks and motorcycles built before 1908, or any vehicle with one or two cylinders built before 1915. This excludes the ubiquitous Model T Ford (four cylinders, built from 1908), which seems a shame, but it's the organizers' event to do with as they please.