A Koenigsegg Jesko draws the crowds at the 2025 St James’ s Motoring Spectacle
Spectators have their photograph taken in the Royal Automobile Club’ s 1900 Simms
Dressed for the occasion, participants bring the spirit of motoring’ s early years to the 2025 St James’ s Motoring Spectacle Students from Oxford Brookes Racing Team
Many of their owners are dressed up in appropriate period Victorian and Edwardian finery, and they just delight in having photos taken and showing people the fascinating and sometimes unexpected details of the cars – up-close, with not a restrictive velvet rope in sight.
There can be no better way to snag the attentions of the veteran car owners of the future than this. It is truly an opportunity to hand on an eclectic passion to the next generation.
Meanwhile, however, the polar opposite of the automotive scale is on offer here on Pall Mall, with a celebration of Formula 1. You can expect to see a display of cars that includes one of the most recent hybrid machines from the 2025 season.
Last year, one of the event’ s most popular attractions was the famous British Grand Prix Trophy. The trophy itself was presented by the Royal Automobile Club to the winner of the very first British Formula 1 race at Silverstone in 1950, as it has been ever year since – most recently to Ferrari’ s Charles Leclerc following his victory at Silverstone in July.
In fact, the Club was also responsible for organising the first British Grand Prix of all – long before the F1 era had even began – at the Brooklands circuit in Weybridge, Surrey, in August 1926. To celebrate the centenary of this achievement, in which nine cars started and only three finished, one of the genuine surviving single-seaters present on that very special day will be in Pall Mall for the Spectacle.
This twin-supercharged 1.5-litre Delage, built in France, was the back-up team car in 1926, and it also raced in the second( and last, until 1948) British Grand Prix the following year. The Delage is usually only found at its home at Brooklands Museum, so this is a rare sortie into the public realm. It has to be seen to be believed … and imagined at full tilt. The Spectacle promises so much more. There are celebrations of both world rallying, and also top-class endurance sports car racing, with significant competitors on show and easy to admire up-close on the tarmac.
And the Club is also marking big years for a number of key cars, chief among them this year the Ford
44 The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run