SEGRAVE’S MACHINE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 7, 30 March 1927, Page 1

SEGRAVE’S MACHINE

He was clocked at 201.711 miles an hour for one kilometre; 203.841 for one mile, and 203.616 for five kilometres. The official records held by Malcolm Campbell are 174.22 for one kilometre and 173.883 for the mile. —Sun. FIVE HUNDRED H.P. ENGINES BACK AND FRONT Major Segrave’s car develops 1,000 horse-power, having two 500 horsepower Sunbeam engines, one in front and the other behind, geared to work in unison. It is a huge machine, dwarfing many of the big cars on the road to-day in length and solid appearance. In driving the racer

The test was made at Dayton beach, Florida. This magnificent beach is one of the few that allows the necessary space. Pendine Sands, where the British high-speed tests are usually made, does not give space enough for the. Sunbeam to make its opening run. It was on Dayton beach that Barney Oldfield in 1908 accomplished 334 rpiles an hour. Obviously it is a long process pushing up speed records. The greatest difficulty was in building tyres to stand the strain. This difficulty was overcome, but the tyres used would not be of much use after about two miles on our Concrete roads. ThC tyres usually used for racing cars will fly to bits at any stage after 120 m.p.h. To give the speed attained a local application Segrave on his recordsmashing run would travel from the Chief Post Office up Queen Street to Karangahape Road ip a. fraction under 18 seconds. •