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| Wooden wheels and paintloss, but what a toy ! |
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| Bluebird, A.R., France, 1935-36 (?) |
In the craziness between the two wars, people were pushing the envelope of just how fast they could go, both in the air, on land or on the water... Sir Campbell was one of those "lunatics", beating speed record after speed record. How did he do it ? Improving on his vehicles - and using bigger and better engines all the time. The first Bluebird car was raced using a Napier-Lion engine, but this model (rebuilt car in 1931) had a powerful Rolls-Royce R V12 engine with supercharger. On 3 September 1935 the speed of 300 mph was achieved (about 480 km/h) on the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah.
Tragically, it is about at around the same speed that his son, Donald Campbell, would die in 1967 - but this time on water... See http://www.sirmalcolmcampbell.com/sirrecord.html for the list of all speed records of the time.
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