The Napier Lion is a 12-cylinder, petrol-fueled 'broad arrow' W12 configuration aircraft engine built by D. Napier & Son from 1917 until the 1930s. A number of advanced features made it the most powerful engine of its day and kept it in production long after other contemporary designs had been superseded. It is particularly well known for its use in a number of racing designs, for aircraft, boats and cars.
D. Napier & Son Limited was a British engineering company best known for its luxury motor cars in the Edwardian era and for its aero engines throughout the early to mid-20th century.
Major Sir Malcolm Campbell was a British racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times, using vehicles called Blue Bird, including a 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam. His son, Donald Campbell, carried on the family tradition by holding both land speed and water speed records.
John Godfrey Parry-Thomas was a Welsh engineer and motor-racing driver who at one time held the land speed record. He was the first driver to be killed in pursuit of the land speed record.
The world unlimited Water Speed Record is the officially recognised fastest speed achieved by a water-borne vehicle, irrespective of propulsion method. The current unlimited record is 511.11 km/h (317.59 mph), achieved by Australian Ken Warby in the Spirit of Australia in 1978.
Reid A. Railton (1895–1977) was a British automotive engineer, and designer of land and water speed record vehicles.
The Rolls-Royce R is a British aero engine that was designed and built specifically for air racing purposes by Rolls-Royce Limited. Nineteen R engines were assembled in a limited production run between 1929 and 1931. Developed from the Rolls-Royce Buzzard, it was a 37-litre capacity, supercharged V-12 capable of producing just under 2,800 horsepower (2,090 kW), and weighed 1,640 pounds (770 kg). Intensive factory testing revealed mechanical failures which were remedied by redesigning the components, greatly improving reliability.
The Sunbeam 350HP is an aero-engined car built by the Sunbeam company in 1920, the first of several land speed record-breaking cars with aircraft engines.
Sir Henry O'Neal de Hane Segrave was an early British pioneer in land speed and water speed records. Segrave, who set three land and one water record, was the first person to hold both titles simultaneously and the first person to travel at over 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) in a land vehicle. He died in an accident in 1930 shortly after setting a new world water speed record on Windermere in the Lake District, England. The Segrave Trophy was established to commemorate his life.
Golden Arrow is a land speed record racer that was built in Britain to regain the world land speed record from the United States. Henry Segrave drove the car at 231.45 mph (372.46 km/h) in March 1929 on Daytona Beach, exceeding the previous record by 24 mph (39 km/h).
Captain George Edward Thomas Eyston MC OBE was a British engineer, inventor, and racing driver best known for breaking the land speed record three times between 1937 and 1939.
The Napier-Campbell Blue Bird was a land speed record car driven by Malcolm Campbell. Its designer was C. Amherst Villiers and Campbell's regular mechanic Leo Villa supervised its construction.
The Campbell-Railton Blue Bird was Sir Malcolm Campbell's final land speed record car.
The White Triplex was an American land speed record car built for J. H. White and driven by Ray Keech. It was powered by three 27-litre Liberty aero engines, for a total of 36 cylinders, 81 litres of displacement and a claimed 1500 bhp.
Miss England I was the first of a series of speedboats used by Henry Segrave and Kaye Don to contest world water speed records in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Gloster VI was a racing seaplane developed as a contestant for the 1929 Schneider Trophy by the Gloster Aircraft Company.
The Sunbeam Tiger is a racing car, built by Sunbeam of Wolverhampton during the 1920s. It was the last car to be competitive both as a land speed record holder, and as a circuit-racing car.
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 engines of 24 litres each, it looked impressive but failed to achieve any records.
Amherst Villiers (1900–1991) was an English automotive, aeronautical and astronautic engineer and portrait painter. He designed a land speed record-breaking car for Malcolm Campbell, and developed the supercharged "Blower Bentley", driven by Henry Birkin and by James Bond.
An aero-engined car is an automobile powered by an engine designed for aircraft use. Most such cars have been built for racing, and many have attempted to set world land speed records. While the practice of fitting cars with aircraft engines predates World War I by a few years, it was most popular in the interwar period between the world wars when military-surplus aircraft engines were readily available and used to power numerous high-performance racing cars. Initially powered by piston aircraft engines, a number of post-World War II aero-engined cars have been powered by aviation turbine and jet engines instead. Piston-engined, turbine-engined, and jet-engined cars have all set world land speed records. There have also been some non-racing automotive applications for aircraft engines, including production vehicles such as the Tucker 48 and prototypes such as the Chrysler Turbine Car, Fiat Turbina, and General Motors Firebirds. In the late 20th century and into the 21st century, there has also been a revival of interest in piston-powered aero-engined racing cars.
