History Auto racing 1894-1942

Another Kaye Don press photo and caption Dated Dec 17, 1929 promoting the upcoming attempt....I am sure someone out there knows more about the car he is pictured in here .......

 

Wiki tells us this about the record attempt....The Sunbeam Silver Bullet was the last attempt at the land speed record by Sunbeam of Wolverhampton. It was built in 1929 for Kaye Don. Powered by two supercharged aero-engines of 24 litres each, it looked impressive but failed to achieve any records.[1][2]

Sunbeam's 1927 200 mph land speed record won with the Sunbeam 1000HP had been broken by 1929, and the company decided to build a car capable of reaching 250 mph (400 km/h) so as to recover it. Only aero engines offered enough power to do this, and such a car would also provide a test bed for developing a new generation of Sunbeam aero-engines.

Sunbeam decided to develop a new aero engine of 2,000 hp (1,500 kW), and the car would be powered by two of them.

This new engine was a water-cooled V-12 with a 50° angle between the banks. Ideal balance usually favours an angle of 60°, but this choice made the engine narrower overall. Cylinder bore was 140 mm (5.5 in) and stroke was 130 mm (5.1 in), for a capacity of 24.02 litres.[3] This oversquare geometry was a first for Sunbeam, but encouraged a high-revving and thus more powerful engine.

The engines were supercharged, using a large centrifugal blower, geared to 17,000 rpm. This was increasingly common aero engine practice of the time, in both the Napier Lion and the Rolls-Royce R-type, but again was a first for Sunbeam.

When installed in the record-attempt car the engines had an unusual cooling system using melting ice rather than a radiator. This avoided the drag of an open radiator, but obviously could only cool for as long as the ice lasted. It was a workable system for land speed records, used by the contemporary Golden Arrow and more recently by the JCB Dieselmax. Silver Bullet had an 11.5-cubic-foot (0.33 m3) ice tank, filled with 5.5 hundredweight (about 280 kilograms) of ice before each run, and a one-gallon mixing tank in the nose.

Competition for the land speed record in between Segrave's Golden Arrow and Malcolm Campbell's new Blue Bird was fierce, so the car was built quickly, working around the clock in shifts. This left little time for thorough static testing of the engines, made even worse as only two engines were ever built and so the only engines available for testing were the race engines themselves. Silver Bullet first appeared in public on 21 February 1930.

Following the other teams, the first record attempt was to be made on Daytona Beach, in Florida, with Kaye Don driving. The car arrived at Daytona on the 8th March and Louis Coatalen himself on 16th. The record attempts went poorly though, with engine reliability problems and the car proving difficult to control. The fastest speed attained was 186 mph (299 km/h), well below Sunbeam's own record of three years earlier.

After the team returned home, further attempts were made to improve the car with testing on Pendine Sands.

Sunbeam aircraft engines had never recovered from the financial effects of the end of the Great War.[11] Coupled with the Depression of the 1930s, Sunbeam simply could not afford a competition program of this scale. Although other UK car companies even did well in this period, Sunbeam did not and went into receivership in 1935.

The Silver Bullet was sold to Jack Field, a Southport hotelier and garage owner. He tested the car on Southport beach, scene of Segrave's earlier success with the Sunbeam Tiger, but couldn't solve its problems and eventually the car was scrapped.[12]

 

Silver Bullet







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Engines showing 50 degree 'V'







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Jim those 1916 Mercers are interesting, I wonder if the others looked the same and what the 'baby' looked like, I guess they're Bentel bodies if George Bentel ran the team. There's cockpit shots of Pullen and Ruckstall amongst the other GG Bain 1916 Astor Cup pics.

 

I'm sure, too, it would have been tallow, but, the quote was copied exactly as it had been written in the "blog".

 

http://www.coronaheritage.org/roadraces.html

 

http://www.elginhistory.com/eaah/eaah-ch06.htm

 

1924 French GP at Lyon, possibly Robert Benoist in a Delage 2LCV finishing third ??

 

Nice clear photo.

Got to love the way they throw the tails out there!

 

That photo in the streets just makes me feel that I was born too late.

I have done some very high speed prewar street events ...... there is nothing like the rush of driving these. Dangerous as hell but like a flame to this moth!

 

Photo captioned as the 1928 Ards TT at Belfast......??

 

At various times Kaye Don owned three Sunbeams, known as The Cub, Tigress and Tiger. You can just make out the beginning of the name The Cub on that picture.

Quote from the Brooklands Golden Jubilee parade programme:

More about Kaye Don here: http://kelvin.leadhoster.com/don/thecars.htm

 

One of the works Alvis team, driven by GA Willday. Failed to finish. Most unusually, these Alvises were front-wheel drive: if you could see the front, you'd find there's a W painted on the left hand headlight cover - Major Harvey's had an H and Purdy's a P.

Picture taken at The Hairpin, just before the village of Dundonald.

 

Thanks for the IDs...... T-H

 

DePlama showing the kids around.......

 

David, what a great pic and typical of DePalma. I have never seen such a great closeup from this angle of the 1919 version of the 299 Packard (I believe). I wonder what the story is on the outfits the young guys are wearing? Thanks-Jim

 

1932 Brooklands British Empire Trophy Race.....John Cobb V-12 Delage ?? What wonderful engine turning.....

 

Brooklands 1929 ?? Violette and Evelyn......

 

Ehdubya, when Mercer started running their OHC cars it became a bit confusing and the history was never written very well back in the day. I am not sure how much Bentel was involved in the OHC cars as he was in the type 45s (what some refer to as the 450 hp cars). He may have been but I have not found the smoking gun myself. There were some press reports that may have originated from him in late summer of 1915 but nothing concrete. He was involved in bodying Mercers and may have had a hand in the OHC cars, I am not sure enough to go out on a limb and claim it I suppose.

It gets somewhat confusing as to what to call the cars 1915 or 1916 or a combination thereof. At Indy in 1915 Mercer attempted to qualify three OHC cars with the same bodywork as the pic above with Pullen at Sheepshead (Pullen, Nikrent and Ruckstell).
Here is a photo from 5/20/15 of the Automobile with Pullen behind the wheel-the first photo I ran across with this bodywork.



The cars did not qualify or were withdrawn due to problems. Ruckstell I believe got his car up to 84.6 but when the other two cars threw con rods all three were withdrawn. Long story on these cars I suppose but they were different from what would be the 1916 cars (or later cars whatever you want to call them). These engines designed by Eric Delling, had the cylinders cast singly and had a spur driven SOHC at the rear of the engine. Delling stated the failure was since he could not acquire good Belgium steel for the con rods due to the war. I have people tell me they raced one of these cars at Chicago in the autumn of 1915 but I am not so sure as I believe it may have been one of the 1914 298 cars that could not get up to speed at Indy (same result in 1915). They (2 cars) may have tried to qualify for the Sheepshead Bay race in September of 1915 but those cars were withdrawn at the last moment with lubrication problems.The press talked up that Mercer had some new mounts for the late 1915 West Coast events but only one Mercer showed up and that was one of the Type 45s.

The press still spoke of Mercer getting their new mounts out but it took until May that Delling said he was not happy with their performance and put off the date until autumn. Their maiden appearance was the 2 cars: Pullen in the number 4 car above at Sheepshead and Ruckstell was in a second car with similar bodywork. I believe these two cars had the new SOHC with the spur gears now at the front and block casting, a very different engine. I believe three cars were built with Thomas to pilot the third car but I do not believe his was quite ready and you can see he is in the mechanics seat in the #4 car.

This is the new engine with the front cam drive. This is Thomas' car later in 1916.



This is the new bodywork for 1916 with the rounded radiator shell and the turned up cowl on Thomas' car.



In the Sheepshead race referred to above Ruckstell rolled his mount and I believe they gave him the new bodywork as well. Pullen continued to run the old bodywork I believe for the balance of the year but switched to the newer bodywork eventually.



I have tried to find any pics of the cars with the old bodywork to find out if they ran anywhere. I do believe one of the cars may have run at Uniontown and Omaha in May and June of 1917, now owned by Olsen and driven by McBride although I would like to find a picture first before shooting myself in the foot. The stats for the Olsen car was pretty much dead nuts to the stats for the 1915 Mercer OHC engines, and single cast cylinder engines were not real common in such a relatively small displacement.

I see you guys are finding all sorts of new pics and hoping I guess a new pic of the 1915 cars shows up. Sorry for the long winded deal but hopefully it will ring a bell-Jim

 

... Cordery. Violette married Noel Macklin, the owner of both Invicta and the Fairline boat company: she raced boats too! Evelyn married Hawker test pilot John Hindmarsh who won Le Mans in 1935 with Luis Fontes. Hindmarsh was killed testing a Hurricane near Brooklands in 1938, Fontes near Llandow in 1940 in a Wellington. The Hindmarshes' daughter Sue married Roy Salvadori, who raced against Lance Macklin, son of Violette and Noel. Small world, eh?

 

The following will be a bit off topic, but, sort of, kinda related.

Harry Hawker was an Australian.
I have posted the following (large) photo in another thread. Check out his personal transport - a Sunbeam powered Mercedes. (Early hot rod????).



"While working for Sopwith after WWI, Harry Hawker, Australian pilot and aircraft designer, used his Sunbeam-Mercedes for fast transportation. He had to lengthen the Mercedes chassis by 10 inches in order to accommodate the 225hp Sunbeam V-12 aero engine."

http://www.airportjournals.com/display.cfm?varID=0611015&PrintPage=True

 

http://newtonlass.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

ARDS TT.

 

http://www.singercars.com/history/ards.html

Singer - ARDS TT

 

Photo didn't link, however, there are many other relevant photos, over 3 pages..
http://derek-beattie.110mb.com/ards-tt.htm

 

Another great photo collection:
http://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/Cars_etc.htm