8 minute read
MOTORING
from The Chap Issue 110
by thechap
nearest neighbours were the London mainline and a sewage works, it still provoked local outrage. An understandable response, given that the wide pristine concrete track with large radius banked corners at each end must have looked shockingly futuristic to the inhabitants of Edwardian England. The novel method of construction led to one of Brooklands’ less admirable traits, in that it was notoriously bumpy from the very start. In particular the bridge over the river Wey became a high point, as the rest of the track sagged either side and numerous cars would be photographed here with all four wheels off the ground. Resurfacing work became a constant if inadequate solution for the rest of the track’s life.
The oddballs, chancers and visionaries soon converged on this new venue, as ‘the village’, a collection of wooden sheds and workshops, sprang up adjacent to the paddock. It became home to not only the car and motorcycle community but also the fledgling aviation industry. The latter would be referenced in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, where the starting point in the film has cars racing around banking and an aircraft crashing into a pond of effluent. The specialist tuners and car dealers would remain virtually unchanged until the Second World War but the aviation side would expand hugely, with Vickers and Hawker becoming major tenants.
Hugh passed away in 1926 but he did at least live to see his dream realised, while Ethyl would remain at the centre of circuit life up to its closure. The between wars era saw a more mobile populace seeking new thrills in the emerging mechanised age and although ‘The Right Crowd and No Crowding’ was the advertising tag line, the circuit saw large numbers turning up to watch the dashing men and
Parry Thomas’s Babs
women roar around the banking. The women drivers were sometimes seen as something of a novelty; famously Barbara Cartland organised a ladies-only race for the cameras, but they do seem to have been generally treated as the equals of the men. They certainly competed on equal terms with the diminutive Canadian Kay Petre battling Gwenda Stewart in 1935 for the women’s lap record, which then stood at around 135 mph. At the time the overall record stood barely 10 mph faster.
Although a qualified success in its purpose of promoting development (a shot of your latest car aviating as it came over the crest of the Test Hill would always help sales) there has been debate ever since about Brooklands promoting a ‘certain type of car’ at the expense of all round good performers. This has even been cited as one reason why Britain didn’t fare well in pre-war Grand Prix, but the flipside was the birth of the ‘Brooklands Special’. Usually low-slung with rudimentary streamlining
Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird
Single seat Bentley, the Pacey Hassan Special
and conforming to the standard format of the biggest engine for any given class in the smallest chassis it would fit in, these cars and their drivers epitomised the dashing pre-war racer. The larger cars (usually powered by war surplus aircraft engines) remain the most enthralling. Malcolm Campbell’s original Blue Bird, progenitor of a speed record dynasty, started its life as the aero-engined 350hp Sunbeam raced at Brooklands in 1920.
Later Blue Birds were designed by Brooklands based Reid Railton and built within the village at Thomson and Taylor, a company co-founded by Parry Thomas, who raced his special ‘Babs’ at the circuit before dying at her wheel during a world speed record attempt on Pendine Sands. Babs had started life as Count Louis Zborowski's ‘Higham Special’, one of many big-engined Brooklands cars built by him, with the most famous being the Chitty Bang Bang series. Christened in reference to a bawdy WWI term, they would later inspire Fleming’s children’s book and the subsequent film.
From ‘single seat Bentleys’ to ‘Flat Iron Rileys’, from the dashing Tim Birkin to the pugnaciously gifted Freddy Dixon, Brooklands provided thrilling sport with a dash of flair. Sadly there were inevitably tragedies. British Movietone’s cameras caught the horrific moment ‘Bentley Boy’ Clive Dunfee fatally went ‘over the top’ of the banking at 130 mph. The newsreel can be found online but the edited sequence manages to capture not just the fate of Dunfee but also what was so magical about this circuit. A large car thundering past a gaggle of smaller cars on the banking, bouncing in unison as they leap from crest to crest on the broken surface at 100 mph plus, is still as stirring a sight today as it was in 1932.
Of course all parties have to end, and the curtain was brought down on Brooklands as a racing circuit with the outbreak of World War II. The need for safe aircraft operations resulted in large breaks being cut out of the iconic banking, and by the end of the War Vickers had effectively taken over the site. It continued as a major aircraft factory until closure in the mid 80s and the official founding of
Concorde at the Brooklands Museum
the museum. Originally centred around the clubhouse, village and Members Banking, the museum has now grown to include the Weybridge banking and a large collection of vehicles and ephemera. If you pay it a visit, make sure you take the time to hunt out the Art Deco airfield control tower, now surrounded by a trading estate but preserved and intact. You may also want to find a quiet, isolated spot on the majestic sweep of what remains of the track, close your eyes and take a moment to think of those long lost fabulous days, when heroes and heroines dared to risk all here in the pursuit of speed and glory. n
Brooklands Clubhouse
Classic Automobiles
THE NAPIER RAILTON
John Cobb was born at the turn of the 20th century in Esher. He would follow his wealthy father into the family’s fur brokering business and this provided him with the funds to indulge his motor racing ambitions. Childhood visits to Brooklands can only have helped to encourage any underlying interests in this field, and Cobb would not only race there but he would also go on to become one of Britain’s most accomplished speed record breakers.
His early forays into racing at Brooklands saw success at the wheel of Count Zborowski's Higham Special, among others, before purchasing the 10.5 litre Delage that had briefly held the land speed record in 1924. This car would have a successful career in his ownership, not only winning races but also setting various records, including the Surrey circuit’s womens’ lap record with Kay Petre. However, the rise of the single seat Bentleys meant that something very special would be needed to compete at the front from the mid-30s onwards.
Thus 1933 saw Cobb commission the ultimate Brooklands car from local company Thomson and Taylor. Their response was the Napier Railton – named for the manufacturer of its engine and their chief designer, Reid Railton. The mechanical heart of the car, the ‘broad arrow 12’ Napier Lion, and its exploits are worthy of an extensive book in itself, but suffice it to say this was a natural choice, and Railton provided it with a chassis that would allow its full potential to be realised on the imperfection of the concrete surface. With functional polished aluminium bodywork, bluff radiator, Union Flags painted on the tail and a bellowing exhaust note, the Napier Railton remains an awe inspiring machine even today. There were wins from the outset, with the lap record soon elevated to a never-to-be-beaten 143.44 mph in 1935. In fact, this combination of car and driver was so potent that they would go on to break over 40 speed records at both the banked Montlhery circuit in France and the Bonneville salt lake in Utah.
Postwar, the old racer was used for testing aircraft drogue chutes and made a star appearance in the film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. It was then raced in historic events by Patrick Lindsay, before Victor Gauntlett bought it and, finally, retirement in a museum in Germany. There it languished until, via a surprise unveiling at the Goodwood Press Day in 1997, it returned home to Weybridge, where it can be seen today at the Brooklands Museum.
Cobb, a “typically modest, stoic gentleman cast in the perfect English mould” according to his biographer Steve Holter, would go on to take the Land Speed Record in partnership with Thomson and Taylor immediately before and after the Second World War in the Railton Special, arguably the pinnacle of achievement for Thomson and Taylor, Reid Railton and the Napier Lion. Cobb would sadly perish during an attempt on the Water Speed Record in 1952. His practice runs across Loch Ness in his jet powered boat were watched by a young Richard Noble, who was inspired by what he saw. A most appropriate epitaph then for this icon of the speed world: even as fate finally managed to catch up with him, John Cobb would pass on the baton to the following generation.
REVIEWS
Author interview: Anne Sebba (p128) • Book Reviews (p134) • Art: Craig Simpson (p138) • Interview: Fifi Chachnil (p144) • Wilde Wit Competition (p151) • Film: Last Night in Soho (p152) • Antiques and Collectables (p157)
