A last Detour in London?
Today - June 22, 2020 – London’s Congestion Charge is being extended to 10pm every night, seven days a week in a bid to keep the capital’s pollution in check. Leisure driving – such as it was –in London will disappear overnight. Detour joined enthusiasts group Waterloo Classics on its ‘Last Drive’ – a protest of sorts (but let’s be honest, hardly the most important one right now) against the new restrictions.
We rally on lower Marsh Street, a cobbled lane that’s usually host to a Saturday market and always home to range of boutique shops. It’s here that Waterloo Classics has held weekly car meets for years and locals and tourists alike have enjoyed seeing everything from 1930s Alfa Romeo Grand Prix cars to organiser Darren Sullivan Vince’s BMW 502 and modern classics like the Fiat-Bertone X1/9 and Ferrari F430.
The turn-out is strong – everything from Messerschmitt to Mercedes – and we squeeze the Detour Seven onto the pavement close to a family member; a Europa. Further down the street there’s a lovely Elan, while other highlights include a Citroen SM and even a Bitter SC.
We leave in formation, but no sooner have we hit the main road back towards Waterloo than we’re stuck in traffic. The owner of a Ford Torino has popped his bonnet for extra cooling and the side pipe on the Seven is already cooking my right arm. The planned route would take us over Tower Bridge and then along the Strand to a photo-ready rallying point at Waterloo Place. But after 40 minutes of going nowhere, we cut our losses, turn back and head over Blackfriars Bridge instead.
North of the river the traffic is thin and we pass through a deserted Theatre Land and whip around Trafalgar Square before joining everyone at Waterloo Place, but there are vast amounts of roadworks as London ups the ante on cycling and squeezes car traffic into fewer and narrower lanes.
The final leg takes us along Regent Street, past newly-reopened shops and into the manicured green of Regents Park.
It’s the kind of drive that I remember doing with my dad on a weekend when I was a kid – just to see the sights of London. And even though COVID-19 has seen traffic levels plummet, roadworks, reduced speed limits and pedestrians rendered effectively blind by staring at their phones and deaf by earbud, make city driving far less of a joy than it was in the 1970s.
Waterloo Classics will move its meet ups further out and Londoners will miss out on seeing some marvellous metal, but I’m sad to say I don’t think I’ll miss city centre Detours. And if I do have a hankering to see the sights, I think I’ll just take my bike.