World's First Motorised Hearse
The 1906 Ford Model N hearse is powered by a two-cylinder, 10-hp engine. The vehicle has been something of a star, appearing on television in Downton Abbey, Mr Selfridge, and Suffragettes.
Jeremiah Frederick Shackletone, the great-uncle of the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton, started the family business in 1703. In the back you can see the original coffin that was made for Ernest Shackleton, after his death in 1922, but in the end his wife decided to have him buried where his died, in South Georgia.
The family owner and vehicle are invited guests of the London-to-Brighton, because it’s a 1906 model (the run is officially for vehicles manufactured before 1 January 1905).
The hearse started life as a one-ton flatbed lorry, to lift headstone and gravestones, with a crane on the back. At the outbreak of World War I, the government requisitioned the horses that pulled what until then had been a horse-drawn hearse, so it was decided to take the crane off the lorry and place the hearse carriage onto the back, and that was it.
Seen on Hanover Street, just off Lower Regent Street where a Royal Automobile Club event was being held in conjunction with the 125th running of the London-to-Brighton Veteran Car Run, which took place on the following day, Sunday 7 November 2021.
World's First Motorised Hearse
The 1906 Ford Model N hearse is powered by a two-cylinder, 10-hp engine. The vehicle has been something of a star, appearing on television in Downton Abbey, Mr Selfridge, and Suffragettes.
Jeremiah Frederick Shackletone, the great-uncle of the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton, started the family business in 1703. In the back you can see the original coffin that was made for Ernest Shackleton, after his death in 1922, but in the end his wife decided to have him buried where his died, in South Georgia.
The family owner and vehicle are invited guests of the London-to-Brighton, because it’s a 1906 model (the run is officially for vehicles manufactured before 1 January 1905).
The hearse started life as a one-ton flatbed lorry, to lift headstone and gravestones, with a crane on the back. At the outbreak of World War I, the government requisitioned the horses that pulled what until then had been a horse-drawn hearse, so it was decided to take the crane off the lorry and place the hearse carriage onto the back, and that was it.
Seen on Hanover Street, just off Lower Regent Street where a Royal Automobile Club event was being held in conjunction with the 125th running of the London-to-Brighton Veteran Car Run, which took place on the following day, Sunday 7 November 2021.