 The photograph of the car
resembling a small guided missile shows Louis Coatalen in
the streamlined chain-drive Sunbeam Nautilus. This was an
early attempt at streamlining, or wind cutting as it was
called in those days, which did not work out so well for
a combination of reasons, including the cooling
arrangements and the weight of the valve gear. Sunbeam began as a japanware and tinplate firm which started making bicycles in 1877 moving on to build their first car, a 4 hp belt-driven prototype in 1899. It was not until Louis Coatalen joined Sunbeam from Hillman in 1909 that the company's progress into competitive motoring got started and his work with pressure lubrication and overhead valves on the road cars soon produced the distinctive four cylinder 4244 cc Nautilus test and racing and it has to be said, publicity, car which appeared at Brooklands in March 1910. The narrow single seater body was made by fastening slats on to a frame formed from hoops. Both the nose and the tail consisted of brass cones, the front one having a small hole in it to let cold air through a small radiator, the rear to take the exhaust pipe. The small radiator was connected to a larger one behind the seat and out of the airstream but the arrangement was flawed and inevitably Nautilius was prone to overheating. When Nautilus raced at Brooklands the rear fairing had to be removed but even so it was fast, achieving a Brooklands lap time of 77.6 mph at the 1910 Whitsun meeting. The heavy mechanism used to control the sixteen overhead valves also contributed to the overheating problem. It has been said that because the Nautilus carburettor was fed from a forward facing air scoop it benefited from forced induction but as we know today, this only works well if the incoming air is not adversely affected by turbulence. Some reports have even claimed, erroneously, that the car was supercharged. By 1911 Nautilus had evolved into Toodles II, an o.h.c. car which did away with all the heavy valve gear. Louis Coatalen won 22 prizes in Toodles II at Brooklands in 1911 and also achieved a flying mile of 86.16 mph to take the 16hp Short Record. Our CDs tell the tale of Toodles II in much greater detail The immensely successful side valve 12/16 three litre touring cars, which in competition trim ran in the 1911 Coupe de l'Auto race, heralded a period of great success and the following year three 74 bhp Sunbeams with a top speed of over 90 mph took the Coupe de L'Auto 1-2-3. One of these cars was subsequently timed at 99.45 mph over the measured mile. By 1913 the side valve Sunbeams were showing their age but Sunbeam's 4.5 litre 6 cylinder GP cars were to follow, one of which averaged 90 mph over 1,000 miles in a record attempt. Subsequently a 9 litre V-12 aero-engined Sunbeam achieved 107.95 miles in the hour at Brooklands to beat a record set shortly beforehand by the Peugeot of French driver Jules Goux. In 1913 Grand Prix Sunbeams failed to shine in America both at Santa Monica and Indianapolis where the best Grant could achieve was a 7th place in the 500. During the war years Sunbeam concentrated on aero engine production while the cars continued to race in America at Indianapolis, Chicago, where Porporato took a second place in the 1914 car and Sheepshead Bay. The 1916 Sunbeams were brand new 4.9 litre six cylinder cars generating 157 bhp. At Indianapolis that year Christiaens took 4th place and collected $2,000 prize money. Louis Chevrolet temporarily forsook his self-built Frontenac to try one out later in the season and picked up third place in the 100 Mile Indianapolis Harvest Racing Classic on the 9th of September. After the May 1921 Indy 500, the cars returned to England and their engines were used in the 1921 GP chassis for the Coppa Florio in which Henry Segrave took 2nd place and Chassagne 4th. Sunbeam aero engines were to make motoring history between the wars when, with others, they featured in a generation of Brooklands outer circuit racing monsters and land speed record cars. One of these was the fearsome V12 in which Rene Thomas made ftd at the Gaillon hill-climb in 1920. Powered by a Sunbeam Manitou seaplane engine of 18,322 cc capacity rated at 300 hp at 2,100 rpm and weighing 28 cwt., the chassis carried a very narrow single seater body with fitted under-tray, the radiator being cowled for streamlining. The car's first outings earlier that year had been less auspicious. During the Brooklands Whitsun practice session while in the hands of aviator Harry Hawker, the offside front tyre had burst on the Member's Banking and the car had plunged off the track damaging the radiator and the steering. At the August meeting it stalled on the starting line and had to be pushed to one side but like many things that seem to get started only with great difficulty, this car was to become a legend. The V12 Sunbeam was to go on to record the name of its maker in letters of fire in the halls of motor racing and record breaking history time and again. At the 1921 Brooklands Easter meeting after even more problems, Kennelm Lee Guinness eventually got the big black and white car wound up and put in a lap of 120.01 mph earning himself a coveted Brooklands 120 mph badge. In the Autumn of 1921 Guinness was timed down the Railway Straight at 135 mph, entering the finishing straight at 140 mph. KLG was awarded a cup by the BARC for his achievement and for running a truly thrilling race against a very fast Vauhall and that infamous old Lorraine Dietrich "Vieux Charles Trois" which Malcolm Campbell had managed to retrieve from France after the Great War. During practice on the 16th May 1922 KLG was timed by friends on the Railway Straight at 144 mph and on the following day in windy conditions he clocked an official 140.51 mph one way to take a new Brooklands lap record of 123.39 mph along with several other speed records over various distances. His official 137.15 mph flying kilometre record was to stand unbeaten for another seven years. Subsequently the car was bought by Malcolm Campbell for a bargain price which has never been disclosed. After a refurbishment he took it to the Fanoe Island speed trials in Denmark where although it recorded a speed of 146.4 mph, much to Campbell's frustration this was never internationally recognised, even though the timing apparatus had been properly certified. Campbell however, was not a man to be easily defeated and after a lot of expensive tuning work and several abortive outings he took the car to Pendine Sands in September 1924 where he recorded an official two-way kilometre of 146.16 mph, 0.015 of a second faster that Eldridge's previous record set in a Fiat at Arpajon in France. Immediately afterwards he put the car up for sale for £1,500 but then relented and decided to spend some more time on it when he learned that Parry Thomas was about to make a serious attempt to take his record from him. Back at Pendine on 21st July 1925 Campbell lifted his record to 150.766 mph becoming the first driver to exceed 150 mph. To commemorate this he had some large scale models of the Sunbeam built, at least two of which are known to have survived. The following year Henry Segrave took Campbell's record and a knighthood in Sunbeam's budget record breaker , the monster twin-engined red 1,000 hp car which was also seen briefly at Brooklands driven by Henry in a wet but spectacular demonstration run. For the next ten years Campbell was to press on with another car, the Napier-Campbell which eventually took the land speed record at Utah in 1935 at 301.13 mph earning him his own long awaited knighthood. Again money changed hands and the V12 Sunbeam was bought by Billy Cotton the famous band leader and well known Brooklands Rily and ERA driver who took it to the 14 mile long Southport beach in Lancashire where he was timed at 121.5 mph. It then fell into neglect. It is not clear whether Billy Cotton sold it or merely left it at Southport but eventually it was discovered in 1943 standing out in the rain behind a garage just outside Southport in a very sorry state. After its last run on Southport Sands it had not been cleaned off, the caked-on salty sand being left to inflict serious damage to various alloy components and to the engine. It narrowly missed being sold for scrap to help the war effort and was rescued to become a curiosity exhibited in various places to the public. By this time the Sunbeam was well beyond economical restoration as a racing car. In the sixties the Sunbeam eventually reached a safe haven being acquired by the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu where it can be seen to this day restored to exhibition standard. The car is resplendent in dark blue against polished aluminium and stands alongside the red 1,000 hp twin engined Sunbeam in which Henry Segrave deprived it of its 150 mph record in 1925. Yes, you can reach out and touch it although they ask you not to. Its an impulse hard to resist when you know so much of its amazing 75 year history! What of all the other Sunbeams? Consult our archives to learn more. |
Prev - Brooklands - Next
Stories
Brooklands Homepage
© Copyright The Brooklands Society Limited 1997.