Steam car passes first road trial

As far back as 1990 when the first Bexhill 100 Festival of Motoring was held to commemorate the 1902 Bexhill Motor Trials, organisers dreamed of creating a replica of the winning Serpollet. High School and St Richards' Catholic College pupils helped with the early stages of the project, which was given its chassis, body and engine and completed by engineer Jeff Theobald.

Now the Serpollet has had its first steam trial and passed with flying colours. Bexhill 100 chairman Malcolm Mitcheson, together with colleagues Brian Hazell, Peter Mitchell-Davis and Peter Smith, were present when Jeff Theobald put the Serpollet through its paces at Hazelmere in Surrey this week.

They came back overjoyed. Malcolm said: "The Serpollet moved under its own power for the first time. It was exciting it was like a phoenix coming to life!

"There was all this snorting and hissing as it was fired-up and the boiler got in steam.

"We didn't build up to full pressure about 300 pounds per square inch. It will normally operate at 350p.s.i. But it was going, literally, under its own steam at 25-30mph.

"It goes enormously well, far better than I had expected. Driving a steam car is quite different. The full torque is available from the moment you move off. But the braking is minimal. You have perhaps 10 per cent of the braking effect you get with a modern car. It means you to have to think a long way ahead. The people who raced these things at Bexhill in 1902 on what was a very rough surface must have been heroes!"

The replica of M. Leon Serpollet's winning car will have its first public demonstration at the Centenary Bexhill 100 Festival of Motoring on De La Warr Parade over the May Bank Holiday.

ABOVE, Malcolm Mitcheson, at the wheel of the replica Serpollet this week, adopts the same pose as in an illustration of the original 1902 steam car (inset)