Record-breaker Blue Bird set for return to sands

THIS summer marks a century since Blue Bird roared across Pendine Sands, setting a new world land speed record on July 21, 1925.

- IAN LEWIS

To honour this milestone, the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in Hampshire, will bring the legendary Sunbeam car, nicknamed Blue Bird, back to life at Pendine.

On Monday, July 21, the car will be on display from 10am and taken on to the beach for photographs between 11am and noon. It will then remain on show outside the Museum of Land Speed during the afternoon until 5pm.

This special centenary celebrates Sir Malcolm Campbell's groundbreaking 150mph record, a historic feat that ignited Britain’s land speed record legacy and began the extraordinary Blue Bird dynasty, later continued by his son Donald Campbell.

Sir Malcolm was the first person to break 150mph in a car, with his record of 150.76mph. He went on to set numerous land and water speed records, while Donald famously became the only person to hold both land and water speed records in the same year in 1964.

It's not the first time that the 1920 Sunbeam has returned to Pendine Sands.

Following the completion of the painstaking rebuild of its complex V12 engine, National Motor Museum engineers were permitted to run it on the beach at Pendine for the 90th anniversary in 2015.