- Four automotive apprentices win once-in-a-lifetime experience to drive 1904 Thornycroft Tourer in the world’s longest-running motoring event.
- Competition launched by SMMT and British Motor Museum to celebrate industry’s apprenticeship talent, with winners from Aston Martin Works, Bentley, Caterpillar and JLR.
- Apprentices reflect how far auto skills and vehicles have travelled in past century, from early petrol engines to the very latest and advanced technology.
Four talented automotive apprentices have won a once-in-a-lifetime chance to drive a 121-year-old car in the Veteran Car Run, the world’s longest-running motoring event, later this year.
The rare opportunity to get behind the wheel of a 1904 Thornycroft Tourer follows a competition launched by SMMT in partnership with the British Motor Museum to mark National Apprenticeship Week, with ambitious apprentices sharing personal stories of how automotive heritage has inspired them to pursue a dream career in the sector.1
The winning four – Matthew Cresswell, Product Design & Development Engineer Apprentice at Caterpillar; Matt Ferley, Panel Shop Apprentice at Aston Martin Works; Connor Heath, Applied Professional Engineering Apprentice at JLR; and Sophie Reynolds, Project Management Apprentice at Bentley – represent a new generation of talent getting to grips with the industry’s very latest skills while understanding the role of past innovation in the UK automotive industry’s success.
The Basingstoke-built Tourer was a cutting-edge innovation upon its debut in 1904, fitted with a prop shaft instead of a chain drive to enhance its smoothness and helping it finish first in the Veteran Car Run – previously called the Commemoration Run – on several occasions prior to the Second World War. More than a century on, technological innovation remains at the core of the industry, with new vehicles now powered by different energy sources, including more than 130 car models now available as zero emission.2
While there are more than one million electric cars currently on the road in the UK,3 there are just two examples of the Tourer – making it a prized possession in the British Motor Museum’s collection.