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In 1910 a rough dirt track which ran for 900 yards up the Chiltern escarpment just outside Princes Risborough, rising some 300 feet as it did so, was the scene for one of the first competitive hillclimb events in the country. Sixty-odd competitors braved the 1 in 8 incline at that first event, and over the next 15 years, apart from a break during WW1, the Kop Hill climb became one of the top motorsport events attracting the top drivers of the day and spectator numbers over 3,000. In 1925 however a serious accident bought an end to both the Kop Hill climb and all similar motorsport events on the public road in the UK.
Almost a century later in 2009 the Kop Hill event was successfully revived, and the following centenary event in 2010 was even more successful. So, how was this year's event? Warthog team member Peter Osborne went along to see.

Although I only live in the next town to Princes Risborough I've not been to the previous two Kop Hill revivals. You know how it is with things on your doorstep? They just somehow get overlooked - and anyway there's the Goodwood Revival meeting isn't there? If you're into old cars, especially old race cars, that's where you'd want to go isn't it? After all, Goodwood's a real race track, with real race cars, really racing. Who wants to go and see a few old timers poodling up a country lane - how boring would that be?

I couldn't have been more wrong! This is a really great two-day event with a fantastic atmosphere that really brings alive the spirit of the 1920s hillclimbs. A great mixture of cars and motorcycles from the earliest days of motoring right up to current supercars.

We went early on the Sunday and found quite a crowd there already. The paddock on the local school's playing fields was packed with people admiring the classic (and some not-so-classic) vehicles waiting for their turn up the hill.

The best part of the morning was spent wandering around the paddock, and the adjacent trade and club stand areas, admiring the ecletic range of vehicles on show. Plenty of "I used to have one of them!" and "My dad had one just like that!" comments were passed. There was even a "Blimey! We built one of those!" when I saw this:

Yes, it's a rare Lotus 7 S4. In a previous existence (1970) Mike Black and I screwed together the first one of these out of the factory, while the Warthog wrote about the build for Motoring News - and here we are outside Mike's garage in suburban Osterley where we did aforesaid screwing together.

Back in the spectator area we were astonished to see how the crowd had grown (the Kop Hill website reports 11,500 spectators over the weekend), although in that old Brooklands phrase it was pretty much the right crowd, and no (well, not too much) crowding.

Battling through the throng, while admiring the host of classics in the spectator carpark - pretty much anything from 1950s petrol tankers to Citroen SMs - we made it to trackside to watch some action. We declined the offer to pay £5 to sit in the startline grandstand and instead chose the free viewing from one of the covered mobile stands parked along the hill. If I have any complaint it's that viewing the action over the hedge is a bit difficult for the shorter members of society, and the mobile viewing platforms did get full pretty quickly. However with a five-year plan in place with the landowners, the organisers are keen to make improvements to the site which hopefully will overcome that problem.

During the lunch break we walked up the hill into the woodland that borders the road and staked a claim at a spot that gave a pretty good view of proceedings, although slightly restricted by the trees. Spectators in the 1920s didn't have this problem judging by contemporary reports in Motor and Autocar there appear to have been no trees at all then — nor hedges for that matter!

I heard that the police had said that although the road was closed it was still a public road and therefore the speed limit still applied. If so, I don't think that some of the entrants had heard that as they certainly seemed to be exceeding the limit as they came past us. Some by a fair margin I'd say - my little Leica certainly couldn't quite keep up with this lightweight E-Type:

It wasn't all old metal, there were some modern exotics such as these two from Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz.

Overall a superb event attended by a good crowd - and a few celeb car nuts (Chris Evans and Jay Kay), racing stars including Barry 'Whizzo' Williams driving one of the Dick Skipworth Ecurie Ecosse cars. Motoring artist Michael Turner, who we last saw on the BOYC day last year (see here), was also there although I only realised that when his superb 1939 SS100 Jaguar swept past up the hill.

Will we be back next year? You bet, and hopefully in a more participatory role - come on Mr. Warthog, you know you want to get the Sprite up that hill!

OZ