Released in 2007

Brooklands

The Official Centenary History

RRP: £30.00
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 978 1 84425 329 6

Brooklands, in its centenary year, is a British institution of huge importance to the history of car racing and aviation. But, as David Venables reveals in this glorious commemorative volume, Brooklands - The Official Centenary History, the famous Surrey landmark, with its banked race circuit and aircraft manufacturing, hosted many other activities too, from motorcycle and bicycle racing to land speed records, not to mention stunts, wagers and even the odd scandal.

In this meticulously researched and comprehensively illustrated Brooklands - The Official Centenary History, David Venables celebrates every aspect of the famous Surrey landmark. The decades of motorsport endeavour - racing, record-breaking, long-distance events, club rallies and manufacturer testing - are chronicled in fascinating detail, as is the pivotal role Brooklands played in Britain's developing aviation industry. Appendices provide Outer Circuit lap records, winners of long-distance races, types of aircraft built, and maps showing how the site evolved.

Brooklands was the inspired creation of one man, Hugh Locke King, who realised that, for motoring to develop; a track was needed where cars could race at the highest speeds attainable. The banked circuit, opened in June 1907, was one of the great engineering wonders of the Edwardian era. It was soon a magnet for the fastest cars and the greatest drivers in the world doing battle. When racing resumed after the First World War in 1920, the public was thrilled by high-speed duels on the rim of the banking between drivers such as Parry Thomas, Malcolm Campbell and Tim Birkin. Despite problems with noise restrictions and the limitations of the 1907 track design, racing continued unabated in the 1930s.

Brooklands was also the birthplace of aviation in Britain. An airfield built within the track was where most of the pioneer pilots learned to fly and many early aircraft were built and tested. It later became the hub of private flying too. In the build-up to the First World War, Vickers and other companies established factories at the track, building many thousands of aircraft flown in action by the Royal Flying Corps and the fledgling Royal Air Force. In 1919 a Vickers Vimy from Brooklands was the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic non-stop. Two legendary Second World War military aircraft - the Hawker Hurricane and Vickers Wellington - made their first flights and were built in large numbers at Brooklands. From 1945, as a result of wartime damage and alteration, the track was no longer suitable for racing, but Brooklands remained a centre of aviation excellence. Many famous aircraft, including the Viscount, VC-10 and Valiant, came from the Vickers factory. With the amalgamation of Vickers into the British Aircraft Corporation, major parts of every Concorde were produced at Brooklands.

As the aircraft factories closed in the 1980s, the site seemed doomed to become a commercial centre and housing estate, but the development of the Brooklands Museum has preserved part of the historic track and a further boost came with the opening of the 'Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands' centre in 2006.

David Venables, formerly the Official Solicitor, is Assistant Editor of the Vintage Sports Car Club Bulletin and author of respected motor racing histories on Napier, Bugatti and Alfa Romeo. He lives in Sussex.