Sunbeam Silver Bullet

A photograph of the Sunbeam 'Silver Bullet', taken by Malindine  for the Daily Herald newspaper on 8 January, 1934. In 1930,  the 'Silver Bullet' car, driven by Kaye Don, attempted to break  the world land speed record at Daytona Beach, Florida.  However, despite its streamlined shape and powerful engine,  the car only managed a disappointing 198mph.

The Silver Bullet was shipped to the USA with as much  publicity as usual. Note the enormous length of the crate,  overhanging the back of the lorry.

Sunbeam's 200m.p.h. land speed record had been broken several times by 1929, and the company decided to try and break the record again, by producing a car that could travel at over 250m.p.h.

As with the 1,000h.p. Sunbeam car, it was decided that the new car would be powered by an aircraft engine. The car would provide an ideal test bed for such an engine, which would need to be much more powerful than in the 1,000h.p. car.

The decision was taken to develop a new engine that could deliver 2,000h.p., and the car would be powered by two of them. The new engine was a V12 with two banks of cylinders set at an angle of 50 degrees, to make the engine more compact. The cylinder bore was 140mm and the stroke was 130mm, giving a capacity of 24.02 litres. The engines were supercharged, using a large centrifugal blower, that was geared to rotate at 17,000r.p.m.

The engines had an unusual cooling system. The usual radiator was replaced with an 11.5cu.ft ice tank and a one gallon mixing tank in the nose. The ice tank had to be filled with 5.5cwt of ice after each run.

Because the land speed record was being broken so often, the car was built at a rapid pace. Work went on around the clock with day and night teams. The car was first shown to the public on 21st February 1930 and at 31 feet in length, was probably the longest car ever made. Kaye Don was to drive the car on the record attempt.

When Don was sitting in the cockpit he had about 20 feet of car bonnet in front of him. But it was only 3 feet wide. The two engines had 12 cylinders, set inline with common crankcases and banks of six on each side.

The streamlining of the body was interesting. Everything was fitted inside the body shell. Even the exhaust pipes were moulded into the sides of the body, while the steering gear, including the draglinks, was also enclosed.

The noise set up by the car when revving was stupendous. The car weighed in at 5 tons.

Thousands of visitors from all over the United States flocked to Daytona Beach for the event. On 25th March 1930 the Silver Bullet was taken out of its garage and a trial run was made down the beach. At the conclusion of the run Kaye Don announced that his instruments had recorded a speed on the first run of 198 mph and on the second run about 160 mph. Both the weather and the beach conditions were bad.

Finally on 10th April 1930, in front of thousands of people, the great car was towed out onto the beach for its official runs. The car behaved badly throughout the two runs. With supercharger blowbacks at 190 mph, which broke compressor blades, other minor mechanical difficulties and poor beach conditions, the attempt at the record was unsuccessful.

After the attempts were concluded the car was towed backed to its garage and shortly afterwards packed up and returned to England. Don decided that the project was hopeless and abandoned his attempt to break Henry Segrave’s 231 mph record set in 1929.

This was the end of Sunbeam's involvement with the land speed record. Henry Segrave and Malcolm Campbell both got knighted. Louis Coatalen got nothing.