Land Speed Record
After the First World War, Louis Coatalen built the Sunbeam 350HP, which was powered by a V12 Manitou engine.
On 18 May 1922, Guinness used the car to set new Land Speed Records at Brooklands: the Brooklands lap record at 121.54 mph, then the flying-start land speed records over a half-mile, kilometre, mile and two miles. The fastest record being 136.05 mph for the half-mile. These were the last land speed records to be set on a racetrack rather than a beach or salt flat.
The car was later sold to Malcolm Campbell, who named it "Blue Bird" and also used it to set Land Speed Records.
After his 1924 accident, Guinness withdrew from record-breaking as well as track competition. However when his Sunbeam co-driver Segrave took the 1,000HP car to Daytona in 1927, Guinness accompanied him.
Read more about this topic: Kenelm Lee Guinness
Famous quotes containing the words land, speed and/or record:
“If a man cheats the land, the land will cheat his belly.”
—Chinese proverb.
“For myself and my loved ones, I want the heat, which comes at the speed of light. I don’t want to have to hang about for the blast, which idles along at the speed of sound.”
—Martin Amis (b. 1949)
“The case of Andrews is really a very bad one, as appears by the record already before me. Yet before receiving this I had ordered his punishment commuted to imprisonment ... and had so telegraphed. I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)