Learning From Experience

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To many people, Veteran car ownership can seem a daunting prospect. The five-handed driving technique and the propensity for breakdowns are some of the things which might fill the prospective owner with dread, but the incorrigible enthusiast has only to espy the twinkle of a brass lamp, or hear the jaunty chuff-chuff-chuff of a single-cylinder engine, and the attraction is irresistible.

Though Hurtu isn’t a well-known marque, chances are that you’ve seen one or two if you’re a regular viewer of the Brighton Run. To generalise, the earlier models are Benz-like while the later ones are in the de Dion mould. Obviously, this 1901 Type H tonneau, believed to be a unique survivor, is one of the latter. Its 5hp engine uses a de Dion crankcase with Hurtu’s own cylinder head.

In 2017, it was bought by a young enthusiast as a non-runner, having not been seen publicly since some Brighton entries in the early 1980s. Five years later, it was back on the Brighton road. That run witnessed some of the most foul-spirited weather in recent Brighton history, with countless moisture-related breakdowns, but the Hurtu’s woes owed more to a gearbox bent on self-destruction.

It remains a work in progress, but it’s ‘the most loveable vehicle I own,’ says Cressida de Little, who imparts some pearls of wisdom to anyone thinking of buying a Veteran for the first time in the August issue of The Automobile, available now.

Words by Zack Stiling, Photographs by Jim Holden

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