Sat down at an Ohio Cracker Barrel restaurant with his brother and two potential investors in his revolutionary water-powered engine, Stanley Meyer took a slug of cranberry juice and immediately rose to his feet, his hands clutching his neck. The 57-year-old inventor rushed out into the parking lot vomiting violently, collapsed to the floor and…
There can be few Welshmen down the centuries who have suffered a more tragic end than racing driver Tom Pryce. A wet-track specialist, Pryce was firmly on the road to a successful Formula One career when a series of freak occurrences on this day, 5 March, 44 years ago led to the 27-year-old’s tragic demise…
On this day 17 years ago the unthinkable happened, Volkswagen stopped making the “original” version of the Beetle, the iconic vehicle dreamed up in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche that became Adolf Hitler’s vision of the “people’s car”. If ever a car oozed personality it was the Beetle, which first came off the production line in…
Occupying an eight-acre site in Bickenhill, Solihull, the National Motorcycle Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of British motorcycles. Originally opened in October 1984, the museum resulted from the drive and determination of one man, construction entrepreneur Roy Richards, who began collecting motorcycles in the 1970s. From just 350 motorcycles when it opened,…
Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of the death of one of Britain’s greatest racing pioneers, Sir Malcolm Campbell. Born in Chislehurst, Kent, Campbell passed away on 31 December 1948 at the age of 63, having held the world speed records on land and on water at various times during the 1920s and 1930s, a feat…
Originally constructed in 1907, the Brooklands race track was the ‘Ascot of Motorsport’ in its heyday and the place where speed demon Sir Malcolm Campbell cut his teeth as a racing driver. Built by local landowner Hugh Locke King on 330 acres of farm and woodland on his estate at Weybridge in Surrey, it was…
