Where Exactly is the Finish Point?

1st May 2009

City Hall - Cape Town

Since1939 when the first high-speed run from London to Cape Town was established by Humphrey Symons and Bertie Browning, various start and finish points have been used by the teams. This was fine when they beat their rivals time by a matter of hours and even days, but as the time gets faster and faster, starting and finsihing at different points could make the difference between success and failure.

The last time a new record was established was back in 1963, when Eric Jackson and Ken Chambers beat the previous best set by George Hinchliffe and his team by a mere 18 minutes! After 2 weeks of driving over 10,000 miles, that's pretty darn close and could easily be disputed unless the teams start and finish at exactly the same points.

It was therefore decided that Mac Mackenney and Jim Allen would fly to Cape Town to find out exactly where the finish point is.

When the Guinness Book of Records administered such records, their rules stated that the start point was Marble Arch in London and the finish, the Royal Cape Club in Cape Town. Max Adventure carried out extensive research into this finish point, but no one knew where the Royal Cape Club was!

When John Hemsley set the record for Cape Town to London Overland (14 days 19 hours and only using a ferry to cross the English Channel), he started at the Head Office of the South African Automobile Association, but this has since been knocked down and is a Hyundai car dealership!

It was decided therefore that the finish point from now on should be the one most used by previous teams over the years - City Hall. Famous for being the location from where Nelson Mandella gave his historic speech after being released from prison on Robbin Island, its clock is an exact half-scale copy of London's Big Ben.