Map over area around Brooklands. far down to the left the start grid of the air field.
Several tries have been done by the four large airplane producing countries, USA, England, France and Russia to succeed with a VTOL fighter. Only England has completed their project to bring a plane to operative status. But they were forced by cost to let the development to be done in USA by McDonnald Douglas. Most VTOL fighters had only a top speed of 1000 km/h except some Russin prototypes with over double the sound.
One sea plane on stand in one of the old hangars.
During WWII there was production of bombers within the Brooklands area. Here they produced 11500 bombers of the type Wellington. The plane which is shown has once been forced to land in the lake of Loch Ness, known from the lake monster. Complete crew survived expect the rear gunner. His parachute didn´t open up.
The design of this plane was done already in the middle of 1930 and main designer was Pierson. The type of construction can be seen on the picture. It consisted of U-profiles from al or steel, This surounded the airplane body. The profiles were riveted by an early sort of pop-rivets. The problem was that if any hollow was made the power lines of the body were deteriorated.
Bugatti Type 13 according to the picture from museum was from the beginning delivered to Madame Louise Alexander 1914. This model is the first in a serie of unbeatable Bugatti Type 13 Brescia 1920. From this a street model was sold in over 2000 units 1926.
Alvis 12/50 Sports Duck Back 1930.
The car is equipped with a 4 cylinders OHV 1.6 l engine. This car was first registered 24/10 1930 and is a typical model that charmed the track and pit at the meetings of the members at Brooklands. The present owner renovated the car and mounted a close ratio gearbox. The last 5 years the car has been regulary been used.
Alvis Speed Twenty 1932 Four Seater Tourer.
This is a high prestande touring car. Compared to a racing car this has an engine with low rpm. It is capable to drive 90 mph and accelerate up to 60 mph in 17.5 s. This was good values 1932 for a 4 cylinders 2.5 l car for £700. It has got the name from RAC rating. Engine gave 87 hp. The car was produced during the time when the first Derby Bentleys were developed.
Peugeot is the next oldest car make in the world. The first one is as everybody know, Benz. Although Peugeot factory is dated already from 1810. At that time the company was producing springs, saws and those things that were modern for women, corsets. Ettore Bugatti made his name known by offering a car construction on license 1910. He went among others to Wanderer and Peugeot. Peugeot bought a license. The car was a development of the Bugatti car Type 10. The original for this car was shown at the Paris Fair 1908. Peugeot was ready to show it 1912 and production continued up to 1916. The demand for it was so big that this car took 80% of the capacity of Peugeot's workshop. The car was named BeBe.
Nationalism for racing in England showed in the beginning of 1930 that people wanted to build a race car to rehabilitate English glory on the race tracks. England had not won any major race since Seagrave won French Grand Prix 1924.
There was a rich Oxford graduated engineer Humphrey Cook who was eager to start a race car project. Now English Racing Automobiles, ERA, was estblished. This man Cook gathered Red Railton and Peter Birthon as designers and Raymond Mays as test driver. This happened 1933.
Record breaker with electrical drives.
Lorriane-Dietrich was a car and engine manufacturer which exist between years 1896 and 1935. Before 1896 they produced railway equipment. Factories were situated on several places like Alsaac and Lorriane provinces. 1902 de Dietrich employed a 21 years young engineer, Ettore Bugatti. He had made his name known as a good car designer. At de Dietrich he work on a four cylinder car with 4 gear gearbox and 25 hp engine. See picture. Anyway Bugatti was not satisfied as he was not allowed to build the types he thought was good to sell. He went instead to Mathis.
Aston Martin Halford Special.
1923 Major Frank Halford realized that airplane engines were of a much better design than the car engines at that time. Halford was involved in several competitions at Brookland 1926 and also in British Grand Prix where he ended 4th. The construction of the car was advanced for it's time with 6 cylinder, DOHC, double spark plugs, double magnets and a turbo compressor. It was much trouble with the turbo so it was changed for a Roots compressor. Perhaps they didn't know about waste gates. Car and engine were destroyed 1930 but is rebuilt again by it's present owner.
Brooklands Rileys were mainly cars for long distance competitions at Brooklands, Phoenix Park and Ulsters TT. This car has a rebuilt body from the producer and at Freddy Dixons workshop suited for Pat Fairfield who did the competitions. The car was sold and then driven by Mike Hawthorn's father Leslie. The sister car won Grand Prix of Germany 1932. Note that the Riley engines were used for ERA.
The place of the driver in the Riley.
collector in USA. With this car in his box Ettore
found a financier 1909 to start his own workshop.
Ettore moved back to the Alsac province. At that time
this was a part of Germany. In Mohlsheim he opened his firm in an old color
factory in order to produce his own cars. Here became his homebuilt car a
competition one, 1910, with the added name "Brescia" type 13. One of
these cars got the name Brescia.
