The World's Speed Kings

In 1902 it was still illegal to travel more than 14 mph on English highways; in 1964, Donald Campbell travelled at 403.1 mph on Lake Eyre, South Australia. Paul Clifton’s The Fastest Men On Earth spans the two eras successfully, even if he fails to expain the cult of speed that sets 20th century man apart from all others.

THAT nebulous thing called the “world land speed record” was the invention of the French who emerged faster than others, from the period when it was neces sary to walk in front of automobiles with a red flag. They still keep a firm grip on it through the rules laid down by the Federation Inter nationale de I’Automobile (or FIA), the international body controlling motor sport.

Some people, of course—like the Americans—are inclined to ignore it and play the game according to their own rules. For example, Craig Breedlove achieved 407.45 mph in Spirit of America in Bonneville in August, 1963, and the Americans still think he is the fastest man on earth. But his record is not recog nised by the international body because, according to the FIA, his three wheeled thrust jet vehicle did not qualify as a car.

Electric Cars The craze for seeing who could travel fastest on land began at the end of the 19th century when a Belgian named Camille Jenatzy, who manufactured electric cars, challenged a French nobleman, Count Gaston de Chasseloup- Laubat, to a car duel. The Count had just set a land speed record, in a French electric car, of 39.24 mph.

While the Count drove cars for fun, Jenatzy manufactured them for profit. To beat the Count, there fore, became not only a matter of honour, but something of a sales gimmick. The contest between the two men, and the Belgian and French cars, was arranged for January 17, 1889, on a straight piece of road at Acheres, near Paris.

At the first attempt, the Count clocked 43.69 mph and retained the record, Jenatzy being able to achieve only 41.42 mph. But over the next three months they met three more times and the honours finally went to the Belgian, who achieved the previously undreamed of speed of 65.79 mph in a hotted up version of his electric car called La Jamais

Contente (The Never Satisfied), which looked like a very large bullet mounted over four, two-ft diameter wheels.

This was about as far as electric cars could go and the next break through had to await the French man Serpollet in his steam car which in April, 1902, reached a speed of 75.06 mph over the measured kilometre.

Petrol Cars From 1903, after a very uncertain start, petrol cars replaced both electric and steam; the 100 mph point was passed as early as July, 1904 (by another Frenchman, Louis Rigolly); and by the 1920’s the British had left everyone else far behind.

Malcolm Campbell, Segrave, Parry and John Cobb became house hold words between the wars. Cobb was still in business after the war and his attempt in September, 1947, at Bonneville set the record at 394.2 mph—a record that stood until Breedlove (unofficially), broke it in the United States in 1963 and Donald Campbell (officially), at Lake Eyre in 1964.

Clifton deals exhaustively with Campbell’s 1963 and 1964 tribula tions—and ultimate success—at Lake Eyre and leaves the reader with the thought that Campbell has already got something more spectacular and faster on the drawing-board than the Blue Bird.

Possibly, therefore, we can look forward to someone in our life-time breaking the sound-barrier while still on the ground—although much of what has happened since 1927 when Segrave passed the 200 mph mark is purely academic for most people.

There seems to have been far more fun in it in the days of Jenatzy and Chasseloup-Laubat when the fastest men on earth used an ordinary piece of road.

The book contains some interest ing photographs dating as far back as La Jamais Contente and as far forward as today’s Blue Bird. —JT.

(The Fastest Men On Earth.

Herbert Jenkins. 26/6.)