Tiger on the beach

Just got back from photographing the fabulous Sunbeam ‘Tiger’ land speed record car out for the first time in years . It was running on Ainsdale beach near Southport exactly 90 years to the day since Sir Henry Segrave drove it to 152.3 mph to clinch the record and was part of the brand new Southport Festival of Speed to celebrate racing in the northern seaside town over the years. The ‘Tiger’ features a 4 litre quad cam dry sump supercharged V12 beast of an engine specially built in 1925 for Segrave by the Wolverhampton based firm and was originally named ‘Ladybird’.

Sunbeam Tiger land speed record car warms up

Sunbeam Tiger land speed record car warms up

The car is currently owned by the Force India F1 team principal Vijay Mallya who has restored the car and was driven on the day by curator Malcolm Page who looks after the Mallya collection. Starting procedure is complicated for this highly advanced racing engine involving fitting a separate carburetor and changing from soft to hard spark plug once the engine is warmed up.With vintage specialist Nick Benwell and others helping, the glorious engine fired up without too much fuss and this Historic car once more roared onto the Southport sands again.

Sunbeam Tiger at speed on Southport Sands

Sunbeam Tiger at speed on Southport Sands

Land Speed Record Cars star at Goodwood Festival

This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed saw some of the all time great Land Speed Record cars on display . As well as the new Bloodhound which is aiming to reach 1000mph in 2015 there were a number of icons of the race for speed including two cars driven by Sir Henry Seagrave’s  the twin engined 1926 Sunbeam which cracked the 200mph barrier and the stunning Golden Arrow which took the record up to 231 mph on Daytona Beach in 1929. Both cars came from the National motor museum at Beaulieu.