Articles
On 21 July 2015 Pendine Sands in South Wales was once again the running location of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s Sunbeam 350hp Bluebird. Driven by his grandson, the drive recreated its record-breaking run of 1925.
Campbell broke nine land speed records between 1924 and 1935. He set the water speed record four times, his highest speed being 141.740mph in 1939. Campbell also won the 1927 and 1928 Grand Prix de Boulogne driving a Bugatti T37A.
Malcolm Campbell was born in Chislehurst, Kent in 1885. As the only son of diamond seller William Campbell, he was to follow into the business. It was while learning the diamond trade in Germany that he became interested in motorbikes and races. Returning to England, he worked for three years at Lloyd’s of London.
His real passion however was motorbike racing; he won all three London to Lakes End Trials from 1906 to 1908. Then, in 1910, he began racing cars at Brooklands.
During the First World War he served with the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and in the Royal Flying Corps. During the 1930s he served in the Territorial Army. Then from 1940 to 1942 he commanded the Military Police contingent of the Coats Mission to evacuate King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and their family in the event of German invasion.
The Bluebird car used in 1925 was conceived by Sunbeam’s chief engineer and racing team manager Louis Coatalen.
It was built at the company’s works in Wolverhampton during 1919 and 1920, and featured a novel design. The car was fitted with a purpose-built 18.322-litre V12 engine based on a hybrid of the Sunbeam Manitou and Sunbeam Arab aeroengines, a type used in naval seaplanes. So the car combined automotive and aeronautical expertise.
Campbell purchased the car from Coatalen. Over the winter of 1923-24 the car was sent to the aircraft maker Boulton Paul at Norwich for wind-tunnel tests. They streamlined Bluebird with a narrow radiator cowl at the nose and a long tapered tail. The rear wheels were also fitted with disc covers. Engine compression was raised by new pistons.
Following these modifications Campbell attempted a record-breaking speed at Fanø in Denmark but on the first run both rear tyres were ripped off and narrowly missed the crowd. Campbell protested to the officials about safety standards.
Later a front tyre came off and killed a boy.
The car was then taken to Pendine Sands and the record was achieved on 24 September 1924, with a speed of 146.16mph and an officially sanctioned time (several of Campbell’s earlier record breaking times had not been officially sanctioned). After this he put the car up for sale for £1,500 but then decided to keep it.
Bluebird returned to Pendine and on 21 July 1925 it became the first car to exceed 150mph. In 1927 Campbell set a new record at Pendine of 174.883mph in his Napier-Campbell Bluebird. He set his final land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in 1935, when he was the first person to drive an automobile over 300mph, averaging 301.337mph in two passes in another Bluebird.
When Campbell died in 1948 it was of natural causes: he was one of the few land speed record holders of his era not to perish in a crash.
Did you know?
Bluebird set three land speed records: 133.75mph in 1922 driven by Kenelm Lee Guinness; 146.16mph in 1924 driven by Sir Malcolm Campbell; and 150.76mph in 1925 driven by Campbell.
Campbell started racing cars in 1910.
Campbell always painted his cars in their distinctive blue livery and called them Bluebird, inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s play of that name.