Some trophies look as if they were born for podiums, champagne and television cameras. The Peall Trophy took a stranger road to the World Rally Championship.

The prize that will be awarded to the winner of the inaugural Rally Scotland in 2027 is a Victorian silver-gilt cup with a story that began far from gravel roads and forest stages. Made in 1887 by London silversmiths Stephen Smith & Son, it was first used in billiards and awarded for the Billiard Association’s ‘All In’ Championship.

William J. Peall, a billiards player and early motoring enthusiast, won the title in 1892 and later donated the trophy to the Royal Automobile Club. Somewhere along the way, this ornate piece of sporting silverware found a second life in rallying, presented to the winner of the UK’s premier international rally event.

In 1951, it was first presented to British husband-and-wife crew Ian Appleyard and Pat Appleyard, who drove a Jaguar XK120 in the RAC International Rally of Great Britain.

Timo Mäkinen was the first recipient of the modern-day WRC era, winning the 1973 event in a Ford Escort RS1600 and starting a roll of honour that links it with some of the championship’s biggest names. For Scottish fans, one name sits above the rest: Colin McRae. His 1995 world title, sealed on home soil, remains one of the great moments in British and Scottish motorsport.

The trophy’s most recent winner was Ott Tänak, who claimed Wales Rally GB in 2019. It has not been presented since. In 2027, it returns.

Rally Scotland will bring the FIA World Rally Championship back to the UK with a new event headquartered in Aberdeen and fought on the closed forest gravel roads of north-east Scotland. The setting will be new, but the prize will carry more than a century of sporting history.

After eight years away, the Peall Trophy is ready to emerge from hibernation. Next autumn, someone will lift it in Scotland.