The winner of the first event, held on Saturday 12 August 1905, was Ernest Instone in a 35 hp Daimler, recording a time of 77.6 seconds for an average speed of 26.15 mph (42.08 km/h). In these early years the competition was not a pure speed event: performances were rated by a formula based on power-to-weight, cars of 20 hp or more were required to carry four seats and a full load of passengers, and the question of whether a car would make it up the hill at all was itself a meaningful measure of success.
From 1913 onward, restrictions on competing cars were lifted, allowing specialised racing cars to enter. Times immediately improved: Joseph Higginson's Vauxhall 30-98 recorded 55.2 seconds on 7 June 1913, over eight seconds quicker than the standing mark. After World War One suspended competition, hillclimbing resumed in July 1920. The 1920s saw the emphasis shift decisively to speed. Count Zborowski of Chitty Bang Bang fame drove a Sunbeam in 1921; Raymond Mays competed for the first time in a self-tuned Hillman. Basil Davenport became Shelsley's first recognized superstar, breaking the hill record four times between 1926 and 1928 in his GN Spider. From 1926, two events per year were held.
The 1930s were widely regarded as a golden era for Shelsley. The 1930 Open meeting counted toward the first European Hill Climbing Championship, bringing major international entrants. Hans Stuck in an Austro Daimler significantly lowered Mays's record to 42.8 seconds, while Rudolf Caracciola drove a Mercedes SSK. Stuck's record stood until September 1933 when Whitney Straight broke it in his Maserati with 41.2 seconds, eventually lowering it to 40.0 seconds in June 1934. Raymond Mays was first to break 40 seconds in May 1935 with a time of 39.6 seconds in his ERA. BBC live radio broadcasts of Open events ran from 1932 through the rest of the 1930s. At the final prewar meeting in June 1939, Mays set a new record of 37.37 seconds.
Hillclimbing resumed at Shelsley in 1947. Stirling Moss had hoped to make his competition debut there but was turned away by a full entry list; he went on to debut at Prescott instead and won at Shelsley in 1948. Ken Wharton, a four-time British Hill Climb Championship winner, broke the hill record on four occasions during the 1950s. The format shifted from Saturday to Sunday meetings during that decade.
The first sub-30-second climb was made by David Hepworth in 1971 in his four-wheel-drive Hepworth FF. Alister Douglas-Osborn chipped the outright record no fewer than eight times between 1976 and 1983. Richard Brown brought the record to 25.34 seconds in 1992, and that mark stood for a decade as the increasingly uneven surface made smooth runs more difficult. Scottish driver Graeme Wight Jr became the first to break 25 seconds in 2002 with a run of 24.85 seconds, winning a £1,000 prize offered for the achievement. Martin Groves broke the record twice in 2008, setting the mark at 22.58 seconds at the August meeting. In August 2021, Sean Gould set a new outright record of 22.37 seconds, with Alex Summers second at 22.52 and Wallace Menzies third at 22.55. Nicola Menzies set a new ladies record of 24.70 seconds at the same meeting. The record was subsequently improved by Will Hall to 22.33 seconds at round 10 of the 2026 British Hillclimb Championship.
The land on which the course sits belongs not to the MAC but to a private landowner, leased on a 99-year term taken out in 1905. As that term approached its 2004 expiry, the club faced the potential end of hillclimbing at the venue. The landowners were unwilling to sell outright but agreed to extend the lease by a further 99 years at substantial cost. The MAC launched the Shelsley Trust, raising over one million pounds to secure the extension, which was signed in 2005. The centenary meeting that year marked both 100 years of competition and the secured future of the course.
Shelsley Walsh occupies a unique position in world motorsport as the longest continuously run event on its original course. Its combination of steep gradient, narrow track, and raw speed requirements has attracted generations of top British hillclimb competitors and international visitors alike, including Formula One regulars from the postwar era. A memorial plaque to Stirling Moss was unveiled at the 11 June 2021 meeting, recognizing his long association with the venue from his teenage debut in 1948. The event's continuity, competitive intensity, and historical depth make it the defining reference point for British hillclimb motorsport.