Record breakers old and new

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This picture, taken in 1964, unites pre- and post-war cars. TCK 300 on the left is the original Bond Equipe GT which had just successfully completed a record run over 1,435.72 miles in a 24-hour endurance run at the Oulton Park circuit. It was a pre-production works vehicle seen in a variety of publicity material as well as in a number of other sporting events, notably the 1964 Monte Carlo and Tulip Rallies. At Oulton Park, the car was driven by a team of three women: Pat Choundley, Liz Jones and Anita Taylor.

Next to the Equipe is a huge, white, open sports car. The photograph attempts to make an historical link between Bond and the famous UU 40, the 40hp Leyland Eight racer with an illustrious history. It was - and still is - one of just 18 of these non plus ultra Leyland chassis built in the 1920s, with this one supposedly the third to be turned into an all-conquering road-racer by speed record holder John Godfrey Parry-Thomas. Parry-Thomas had been working as a chief engineer for Leyland and was given the job of producing ‘the perfect car’ to challenge Rolls-Royces, with money being no object. When he decided to try it on the racing track, the engineer became so smitten with speed that he decided to quit his job at Leyland and start his own company to focus on going as fast as possible. Several sources mention that he lived at the Brooklands circuit in a bungalow converted from a First World War hut, humorously named the Hermitage. According to Charles Jennings’s book The Fast Set, “It was an ascetic life, shared only with two Alsatian dogs and his cars, in stark contrast to the hedonism of the Bentley Boys.”

It seems fair to say that land speed records took over Parry-Thomas’s life. He, John Cobb and Malcolm Campbell took turns at becoming the world’s fastest drivers, with cars which each bore their own marks of their drivers’ engineering ingenuity. Sadly, Parry-Thomas was the first driver to be killed in a speed record attempt, at Pendine Sands in 1927. By the time of his death, UU 40 is believed to have been about halfway through its development. The Barker-bodied car was finished and restored by Leyland Cars many years later and has been on permanent display at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon since the 1990s.

Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: Bond Magazine
 

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