Speed Demons: Five Men from Britain's Golden Era of Speed

Between the wars, Britain all but monopolised the pursuit of land- and water-speed records. Simon De Burton looks back at five of those dashing pioneers — some of whom paid the ultimate price for their obsession.

Speed Demons: Five Men from Britain's Golden Era of Speed

Have you heard of Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat? Maybe not, but there was a time when he was lionised for achieving the highest speed officially recorded in an automobile. True, 39.24mph (or 63.15kph, as the French have it) isn’t that impressive today, but on December 18, 1898 it must have elicited many a cry of sacre bleu! and mon dieu! from the crowds assembled in Achères park, Paris, to witness the inauguration of the land-speed record. 

As we struggle to fully embrace battery vehicles 126 years later, it is perhaps ironic that De Chasseloup-Laubat achieved the feat in an electrically propelled Jeantaud — although his record was broken less than a month later, when the Belgian Camille Jenatzy hit a heady 41.42mph in another electric car of his own making. 

The record oscillated between Jenatzy and the count over the course of the next three months, as the two men drove improved vehicles and set ever faster times, with the latter achieving an apparently unbeatable speed of 57.60mph in the streamlined (ie. pointed at both ends) Jeantaud Duc Profilée on March 4, 1899. 

Jenatzy, however, was having none of it, and on April 1 he rolled out the dual-motor, alloy-bodied, torpedo-shaped masterpiece that he dubbed ‘La Jamais Contente’ — the ‘Never Satisfied’. With Belgium’s famously sterling reputation on his conscience, and without a care for his own safety, Jenatzy (known as the ‘Red Devil’ due to his flaming beard) gritted his teeth and, with his body protruding absurdly far out of the car’s cockpit, ripped along the designated kilometre at Achères — only to discover that the timekeepers hadn’t been, er, quite ready. Undaunted (but probably quite cross), he returned on April 29 to become the first person to travel at more than a mile a minute (in anything other than a train) by crossing the line at 65.79mph. 

Crushed by the news, the duke did not respond. 

But the fact that we humans are inherently ‘never satisfied’ meant that chasing the dream to be ‘the fastest man on Earth’ became the pursuit of many a speed-obsessed hero, and, between 1920 to around 1940, the majority of them were British. Here we profile those magnificent men from Britain’s golden era of speed. 

The Irish-born driver Kenelm Lee Guinness at the wheel of his Racing Darracq.
Guinness in his Talbot-Darracq at Brooklands in Surrey in 1921.
Sir Malcolm Campbell.
Campbell with his Blue Bird.

Kenelm Lee Guinness 

The first person to reach the magic 100mph on four wheels was the Frenchman Louis Rigolly, who achieved the feat in 1904, and it wasn’t until the 1920s that British drivers got the bit between their teeth and started to achieve some serious speeds. 

At the start of the decade, the one-eyed American Tommy Milton had hit 156.03mph at Daytona Beach driving a Duesenberg developed specifically for the purpose, but the car managed only a single run before inconveniently catching fire, so the record was not internationally recognised. Inevitably, as speeds increased, the cost of building record-breaking cars grew, which meant a plentiful supply of money was required if the aim of being the fastest person on the planet was to be achieved. In that respect, Kenelm Lee Guinness was well placed. As the name hints at, he was the son of Benjamin Lee Guinness, who was a scion of the celebrated brewing dynasty and then the wealthiest man in Ireland. 

‘KLG’ became interested in motor racing while at Cambridge University, during which time he worked as a mechanic for his gentleman racing-driver brother, Algernon. By his late twenties, KLG had also become a racer, as an official team member of the prestigious Sunbeam marque, which, during world war I, had turned to the production of aircraft motors. After hostilities ceased, the chief designer, Louis Coatelen, had the bright idea of fitting one of their 18,300cc, 12-cylinder aero engines into a racing car chassis, thus creating what became known as the ‘350 Horsepower Sunbeam’. 

On May 17, 1922, KLG took the car’s controls and used it to set a highest official speed of 133.75mph at the famous Brooklands banked race circuit in Surrey — making it the last land-speed record to be set on a track rather than on a beach or salt pan. 

When not driving cars, KLG was running his own successful business — the KLG spark-plug company based in a converted pub called The Bald Faced Stag in London’s Putney Vale. His work in keeping the RAF supplied with spark plugs during the war earned Kenelm an O.B.E. and more than enough money to pursue independently his love of racing and record breaking. But a horrific crash during the San Sebastián grand prix of 1924, in which his riding mechanic was killed, prompted him to abandon motorsport. 

The following years saw a dramatic decline in KLG’s mental state. His personality darkened, and in 1937 he killed himself in his home bedroom at the age of 49. 

Malcolm Campbell was the consummate gentleman but 'quite unfitted for the role of husband and family man'.

Sir Malcolm Campbell 

The ultimate hero to many a schoolboy of the 1920s and thirties, Captain (later Sir) Malcolm Campbell set no fewer than nine world speed records on land and four on water, all in machines dubbed ‘Blue Bird’, after Maurice Maeterlinck’s stage play of the same name. 

Born the son of a Hatton Garden diamond merchant in 1885, Campbell was sent to Germany to learn the gem trade, and it was there that he fell in love with motorcycles and racing. Back in Britain, he won the gruelling London to Land’s End trial three years in succession before taking to competition in four wheelers at Brooklands, using the Blue Bird name on a car for the first time in 1910. 

Always immaculately attired in shirt and tie (often complemented by white racing overalls, flying helmet and goggles when at the track), Campbell was the consummate gentleman, but, as observed by Dorothy Whittall, the second of his three wives, “he was quite unfitted for the role of husband and family man”. In truth, Campbell was wedded to his need for speed and, after much pestering, succeeded in acquiring KLG’s Sunbeam, which, of course, he painted blue and renamed Blue Bird. 

Campbell soon smashed KLG’s record, but the runs were disallowed on technicalities, something that made the former soldier, pilot and Territorial Army commander all the more determined. 

Working with his trusty mechanic, Leo Villa, Campbell modified the car in advance of another try at the land-speed record, which he achieved at Pendine Sands in September 1924 with a maximum velocity of 146.16mph, pipping the 146.01 set a few weeks earlier by the Fiat-driving Ernest Eldridge. 

The following year, Campbell became the first to hit 150mph, again with the Sunbeam, after which he built a bespoke Blue Bird powered by a 23.9-litre Napier Lion aero engine, which, thanks to his military connections, he was able to ‘borrow’ from the Air Ministry. The resulting car took Campbell to a world record 174.883mph in 1927, then on to 206.956mph the following year, before another new Blue Bird boosted him to 246.09mph (and his knighthood) at Daytona in 1931. Campbell upped that to 253.97mph at Daytona in 1932, then replaced the Napier Lion with a more powerful Rolls- Royce R engine for 1933, pushing the car to 272.46mph. 

Never-satisfied Campbell then called on engineering genius Reid Railton to substantially rework the car, which ended up with sleeker bodywork and twin rear wheels, all of which proved to be a lot of trouble and expense (reputedly £10,000) in order to gain just four mph at Daytona in 1935. 

Campbell’s last hurrah on wheels took place in September of the same year, when he drove Blue Bird to a record of 301.129mph at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. He subsequently focused on water- speed records, achieving 141.740 on Coniston Water with Blue Bird K4 in 1939. He died nine years later after a series of strokes, making him a rarity among British land-speed record holders in not having been killed ‘on the job’. 

Kenelm Lee Guinness, John Parry-Thomas and W.D. Hawkes.

John Parry-Thomas 

Unlike wealthier speed merchants such as Kenelm Lee Guinness and Sir Malcolm Campbell, the Welshman John Parry-Thomas was forced to make his record attempts on a shoestring budget. 

His love of racing led him to give up a secure role as chief engineer at Leyland Motors in favour of developing and working on competition cars, something he did while living with his two Alsatian dogs in a converted first-world-war RAF hut at the Brooklands aerodrome. 

Keen to promote the profile of his business, Parry-Thomas decided to have a crack at the land-speed record using a car known as the Higham Special, which he bought for £125 from the estate of the aristocrat racer Count Louis Zborowski shortly after he was killed at Monza in 1924. 

The Higham Special boasted a 26.9-litre, 400 horsepower aero-engine that drove the rear wheels via chains. Parry-Thomas modified it with a more aerodynamic body, painted it white with a blue chassis, and named it ‘Babs’. 

He took the car to Pendine Sands on April 27, 1926, where, dressed in one of his favoured Fair Isle sweaters, he became the fastest man on Earth after completing two runs at an average speed of 169.30mph, comfortably faster than the 152.33mph of the previous record holder, Henry Segrave. The following day, Parry-Thomas hit 171.02mph, but he knew Babs could go faster still — a conviction that, in speed record circles, commonly precedes disaster. 

At Pendine in March the following year, the Welshman had pushed Babs to an estimated 180mph when she overturned, killing him at the age of 42. He was the first person to die trying to break a land-speed record. 

The Sunbeam 1000hp world land-speed record attempt at Daytona in 1927.
Tommy Milton and Sir Henry Segrave.
Cobb leans on his car after breaking the lap record at Brooklands.
John Cobb in the cockpit of his Railton-Mobil Special.

Sir Henry Segrave 

Born in Maryland in 1896, raised in Ireland, schooled at Eton and trained for military duty at Sandhurst: Henry Segrave’s early life was one of gung-ho adventure. 

After being hit in the shoulder aged 18 while leading his men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment on the Western Front, Segrave transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was shot down over the Somme, later ending up in America as part of the British Aviation Mission. Post-war, Segrave became a pioneer racing driver, winning Britain’s first long-distance car race, a 200-miler held at Brooklands. 

Driving for the Sunbeam marque, he became the first Briton to win a grand prix in a British car when he took the chequered flag at the French event in 1923, after which he retired from motor racing to focus on breaking speed records. He secured his first in 1926, reaching 152.33mph behind the wheel of a four-litre Sunbeam on Southport’s Ainsdale beach, but John Parry-Thomas quickly surpassed it, spurring on Segrave to become the first person to hit 200mph a year later at Daytona Beach in a 1,000 horsepower Sunbeam known as the ‘Slug’. 

Daytona was also the venue for Segrave’s final land-speed record, which he achieved in 1929 with the legendary Golden Arrow by clocking 231.45mph — two days after which the American Lee Bible was killed trying to break it. Bible’s demise caused Segrave to stop chasing land-speed records, and Golden Arrow never ran again. Today it sits in the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, having covered less than 19 miles in 95 years. 

Segrave was knighted for his efforts, then turned to breaking water-speed records. He piloted his aero-engined boat Miss England II to a two-run average of 98.7mph on Lake Windermere on June 13, 1930. A third run, however, proved fatal: the boat capsized at full speed, with chief engineer Victor Halliwell being killed, mechanic Jack Willcocks escaping with a broken arm, and Segrave quickly succumbing to blood in the lungs. He was 33. 

A third run proved fatal: the boat capsized at full speed, with Segrave succumbing to blood in the lungs. He was 33. 

Goldenrod at Bonneville Salt Flats, where Bob Summers drove at 409.277mph in November 1965.

John Cobb 

Born in 1899, within spitting distance of the site of the Brooklands race circuit (which opened when he was eight), John Cobb enjoyed just the sort of privileged upbringing that stood him in good stead to finance his future exploits as a speed merchant. 

Raised in an 18th century mansion called The Grove, Cobb was educated at Eton and Cambridge thanks to the wealth of his father, Rhodes, a successful fur trader who later welcomed his son into the business. 

Cobb Jr.’s aptitude for business quickly enabled him to self-finance a passion for motor racing , with his first win coming at the age of 26 while driving his 10-litre Fiat. But it was the string of successes he achieved at his home track, Brooklands, that spurred Cobb on to becoming a record breaker.

Having set the fastest ‘outer’ lap time at the circuit three times in three years driving a Delage (in which he was clocked at more than 138mph), Cobb commissioned the 24-litre Napier Railton in 1933, using it two years later to set the fastest lap of all time at Brooklands with an average speed of 143.4mph. But that number paled into insignificance on September 15, 1938, when his futuristic, exquisitely streamlined Railton Special (which was powered by twin Napier Lion W12 aero engines producing 2,700 horsepower) rocketed to 353.3mph at Bonneville Salt Flats. 

Cobb returned with the car in 1939 to regain the record taken by fellow Briton Captain George Eyston, this time hitting 369.7 miles per hour — after which the war got in the way of such activities. 

The pursuit of speed resumed after 1945, and Cobb came back with the renamed Railton Mobil Special and became the first person to average 400mph over two runs of a measured mile. It was a record that stood for 18 years, until it was broken by the American ‘streamliner’ Goldenrod, which Californian Bill Summers drove to 409.277mph — a speed that wasn’t officially bested by the same class of vehicle for almost 43 years. 

Cobb, however, never had to feel the pain of no longer being the fastest man on Earth — he was killed in 1952 while trying to break the world water-speed record on Scotland’s Loch Ness. His jet-powered boat, Crusader, was travelling at more than 200mph when it disintegrated. 

Sir Malcolm Campbell’s record attempt at Daytona in the U.S. in March 1933.

Photo Credits: Getty Images