New Racing Car for Record Attack

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23037, 14 May 1938, Page 12 (Supplement)

New Racing Car for Record Attack

ATTEMPT TO REACH . 350 MILES AN HOUR

FROM London come details of the unorthodox super racing car which John Cobb, one of England's leading racing -drivers, has had built with a view to endeavouring to better Capt. G. Eyston's world's land speed record of 311.42 miles an hour. The machine, its streamlined body, looks like a turtle. Its aluminium body weighs less than 5001b. and can be detached completely from the chassis in about three minutes. The super-structure has no tail, and has no breaks in its streamlining, apart from a small windowed turret over the driver's head. The machine, which was designed by Reid Railton, weighs only a little over three tons aB compared with the "Thunderbolt's" seven tons.

a ratio that should provide Cobb with wonderful acceleration. The making of tho wheel and tyre equipment for Cobb's car was entrusted to the Dunlop company.

The attempt will be Cobb's first effort to gain the motoring blue riband, and tho vemio will be the Bonneville Salt Lake bed, Utah, the scene of Eyston's and Campbell's successful attacks on the world's land speed record. However, John Cobb, whose hobby is motor racing, is no stranger to the natural hard salt speedway at Bonnevillo, for he has already established several long distance world's records on tho salt bed. Cobb will probably leave England for Utah this month. His objective is 350 miles an hour.

Two supercharged 1250 horsepower Napier aero engines are installed in the chassis, tho rear engine driving the front wheels and the front engine the rear wheels. The position allocated to the driver is a unique one, forward of the front axle. No radiator is provided; a large water tank, containing some 70 gallons of iced water, being used to keep the engines at the required temperature. The track of the rear wheels, which are normally sprung, is two feet less than the independently-sprung front wheels, and while the wheelbase of the machine is only 13ft. 6in., the overall length of the turtle-shaped body is 29ft. The power-weight ratio of the machine is 1 horsepower to every 2.81b.,