My love of motorsport is more a love of speed rather than racing, although it could be considered as a race against time. When I was a boy, John Cobb made a significant impression on me, it was the clever things about the man himself that so attracted me. Not only was he a great racer, but he held the lap record at Brooklands at over 143mph; how he ever got to an average of that speed on such a rough surface is simply amazing. The record, set in 1935, obviously stands in perpetuity since the track fell into disuse during the Second World War.
Cobb was clever; what he did with Reid Railton was to give him complete freedom when it came to the design of the record car. Railton, being an absolute genius, soon realized the problems associated with land speed record cars; they must either be front-wheel drive or four-wheel driven, otherwise the stability of the car is compromised. It was the design of the Railton’s Mobil Special car with which John Cobb set the Land Speed Record at 394.7 mph (635.2 kph) in 1947, and held for some 16 years, that I consider as one of the greatest cars. So much so, when Bamford’s asked me to get involved in the JCB Dieselmax project, I had no hesitation in taking Tim Leverton (the designer) to the Museum of Science and Industry, Birmingham, UK, to see Railton’s Mobil Special. Some of the design concepts for the JCB car were directly taken from the Railton car. What more of an accolade could I give than that?
The Campbells obviously played their part in the land speed history, too. Sir Malcolm’s efforts were steady, taking a car and gradually developing it progressively from 150mph to 301mph—a great achievement. Yet, the cars were very conventional and designed around the culture of Brooklands, whereas Cobb’s car had four wheels independently driven. Donald Campbell was an amazing man to hold both the land and water speed record in the same year, just amazing. Bluebird CN7 was simply a tremendously beautiful looking machine. However, in my opinion, he was unfortunate in the fact it was the wrong car to be driving. He was still working on, and driving, a wheel-driven car when the Americans were getting involved in jet-engined machines. It has to be remembered that the Korean War played a part in jet engines being made available. In fact, any war heralds a surplus of military equipment,such as jet engines, being made available to mere mortals such as Art Arfons, Craig Breedlove, and later, me. Arfons and Breedlove took full advantage, and must be given full credit and the recognition they rightly deserve. Not only for driving their cars, but also, designing and building their cars—that, of course, is the ultimate. I was only able to finance and drive Thrust 2 with my efforts, the design and building of the car was all part of the team behind me.
For me, the future holds something really special, the Bloodhound Project. My primary objective is to inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science, engineering, technology, and mathematics by demonstrating how they can be harnessed to achieve the seemingly impossible, as with the Bloodhound 1000 mph land speed record. Because the FIA Land Speed Record rules are minimal, the challenger cars tend to be very different and, therefore, because the technology is unlikely to be of value to a competitor, there is no need to be secretive about it. It can, and will, all be made available on the web (www.bloodhoundssc.com) as it happens.
As told to Mike Jiggle
