Our Price: £4.99

Bluebird Malcolm Campbell 1933 Daytona LSR

This wonderfully atmospheric photo shows Sir Malcolm Campbell posed with his famous Bluebird land speed record car at Daytona Beach Florida in 1933.

The huge car haf just made a successful attempt on the land speed record, raising it to over 250mph.

Great atmosphere, the faces of the driver and the assembled crowd of onlookers in the background are clear and the sense of excitement is tangible.

The sheer size of the Blubird is very clear with it's massive V12 Rolls Royce R Type aero engine and huge tail fin.The car was the first to top 250mph, then 275mph and ultimately, with a more streamlined body, 300mph which it achieved in 1935.

Malcolm Campbell was from a family of diamond mechants and made his own fortune in insurance before World War 1. He raced motorycles and cars at Brooklands before the war, the first Bluebird if a long line was a Darraq Grand Prix car that he repainted blue overnight having been inspired by a play of the same name. After service in the Royal Flying Corps he raced extensively in the 1920s in Britain and europe with an assortament of different cars, assisted by one of his businesses being the importing of Bugatti sports and racing cars into Britain.

He raced in the British (RAC) Grand Prix at Brooklands in a Bugatti and later bought one of the Delage cars that had scored a resounding win in the event and scored many successes with that. He started record breaking with the 350HP Sunbeam re-christened Bluebird and after three unofficial records finally got one in the bag at Pendine Beach in 1925, shortly afterwards topping that with the first official 150mph record. He built his own dedicated record car with a Napier Engine in 1926 and broke the record again with this, rebuilt it several times over the following 10 years, chaged to supercharged Napier engine then a Rolls Royce R Type motor. He was the first man past 250mph and 300mph, then took to speed boats and broke the water speed record three times, still holding it at 141 mph when he died in 1949. he was knighted as Sir Malcolm in the 1930s for his services to the presiege of the British Empire in his repeated record breaking. He was also a prolific author of many books some on motoring others on politics and he was a fervent supporter of Churchill's views in the 1930s that appeasing the Nazi's was a waste of time. During WW2 he worked as an inventor of various military gadgets.

His son Donald took up the cause and set many more water speed records in the 50s and 60s, the land speed record in 1964 but was killed in 1967 trying to top 300mph in his boat, also known, of course, as Bluebird.

10x8 inch (254x203mm)

« Back