2007 Goodwood Festival of Speed: Land Speed Record cars
by Frank Filipponio on Jun 25th 2007 at 2:02PM 
The theme of the 2007 Festival of Speed was Spark of Genius – Breaking Records, Pushing Boundaries, and so it's fitting that Land Speed Record (LSR) vehicles were given a special display at this year's event. A group of the vehicles was arranged on the cricket pitch, including several from Bonneville Speed Weeks past. There was the 1960 Challenger 1 (4 engines, 400+ mph), The Blue Flame, which managed better than 630 mph in 1970, a Ford Coupe, some MGs, the 1949 SoCal belly-tank car (198 mph), and even the newest -- the JCB DieselMax that we have written about fairly extensively in the past year or so. There were many others as well, but none could top Babs.
With its huge 27-liter Liberty engine, it set a record of 170 mph in 1926 before crashing the next year. The driver didn't survive and the car itself was buried in a hole in the beach for a number of years. It was finally dug up in 1969 and restored. And Babs was here this weekend, all 20-something feet of her. The best part of that story is that Babs was fired up, to the appreciation of the crowd, and run up the hill all weekend. Oversteering in the rain and everything. It was an absolutely amazing vehicle amidst so many other great stories here at Goodwood.
All photos © 2007 Frank Filipponio / Weblogs, Inc.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bmoredlj 2:11PM (6/25/2007)
No Thrust SSC?
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Doc Lucas 3:21PM (6/25/2007)
RE: Babs... It's not very often one drives a car that another died driving. Creepy.
The Blue Flame, how cool. This was the vehicle that defined "fast" for over a decade, the first to go 1,000 km/h. It reminds me of wasting time at my school desk doodling it.
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Dick Keller 10:27AM (9/03/2007)
Doodling in school - that's how it all starts.
Dick Keller
former partner in Reaction Dynamics, Inc.
(designer and builder of The Blue Flame)
Barney 4:04PM (6/25/2007)
I can remember Art Arfons and the Green Monster. No interenet than and our local media didn't touch upon it. It was my glee to find a magazine devoted just to the man and his car. I can remember reading how hard Arfons worked to set that record. 536 MPH
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