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NEWS
Half century looms for Lake Eyre record
Donald Campbell's Bluebird CN7 finally broke the world land speed record on July 17, 1964Not quite 50 years ago Donald Campbell set a new land speed record on the salty surface of Lake Eyre in South Australia.
Ironically, the record – 403.1MPH (648.73 km/h) – was a long time coming for Campbell. He and his team had brought his purpose-built record breaker, the Bluebird CN7, to South Australia over a year earlier. Lake Eyre had promised a rock-hard salt surface in the absence of any rainfall during the previous two decades. With a 32km track mapped out for the record attempt on the lake bed, there was plenty of room for the Bluebird to reach speeds approaching 800km/h.
Unfortunately for Campbell – son of another record breaker, Sir Malcolm Campbell – rain began to fall as soon as he arrived in March of 1963. The rain worsened in late May of that year and, at one point, the Bluebird was under threat from floodwaters. Campbell was forced to remove the car from the lake bed during one night.
A year later, Campbell and Bluebird were back at Lake Eyre. The surface remained soggier than it had been before the downpour the previous year, and further rain fell in June of 1964, but Campbell finally set a new record for a wheel-driven vehicle the following month.
In 1964 Campbell became the first (and last) person to hold both land and water speed records in the same year. It was while in pursuit of a new world water speed record less than three years later he died at the helm of his hydroplane, Bluebird K7, on Coniston Water in England's Lakes District.
But the four-tonne Bluebird CN7 has survived and can be seen at Britain's National Motor Museum, where it is the centrepiece of a new display – 'For Britain & The Hell of it'. The vehicle features a Bristol-Siddeley Proteus gas-turbine engine rated at 3320kW driving all four wheels. At 9.1 metres in length and with maximum steering lock of just four degrees, the Bluebird's turning circle is never likely to find favour in a supermarket car park.
On the evening of July 17, Campbell's widow, Tonia Bern-Campbell (pictured with her husband and the K7), will speak about the record attempt and her life with the famous record-holder, during a dinner at the museum. A digital remastering of a film about the record attempt, 'How Long a Mile...' will be shown for the first time that same evening.
Aussies planning to be in Britain at that time can contact the event organisers by email corporate@beaulieu.co.uk to book tickets.
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Written byCarsales Staff
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