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Campbell’s LSR Sunbeam Back in Form
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Racecar News

Campbell’s LSR Sunbeam Back in Form

 VR Staff

The National Motor Museum’s Land Speed Record breaking 1920 Sunbeam 350hp has been fitted with a replacement gearbox to match its rebuilt engine, decades after losing its original gearbox.

The ongoing project to restore and preserve Sir Malcolm Campbell’s iconic machine, which set a 150mph World Land Speed Record nearly a century ago, has been a labor of love for Beaulieu’s workshop engineers.

Malcolm Campbell at speed in the Sunbeam 350hp at Pendine Sands.

Having painstakingly rebuilt its complex V12 engine, they triumphantly took this landmark vehicle back to Pendine Sands in South Wales in 2015, for a low-speed reconstruction of its World Land Speed Record 90 years earlier.

Malcolm Campbell tends to the Sunbeam 350hp at Pendine Sands.

However, while the engine was then in fine fettle, the non-original gearbox has always been the Achilles’ heel in this car’s history and has long been the missing part of its puzzle. At some point after World War II, the original gearbox was removed and by the time the Sunbeam became an exhibit at the National Motor Museum, it was fitted with a temporary gearbox from an Albion 35hp. Only designed to handle a tenth of the engine’s power, this gearbox also lacked a transmission brake – an important part of the Sunbeam’s original brake set-up.

The Sunbeam’s new gearbox, with the cover plate removed.

Reinstating a suitable gearbox has been a priority for the engineers, as the next stage of the car’s ongoing preservation. With help from the museum’s supporters, a sturdy Bentley C-type gearbox has been sourced and adapted to fit the Sunbeam’s chassis with custom-made mounts. This unit has proven, in other applications, to be well suited to the task of handling the colossal power of the 18-litre V12 engine.

Best of all, this is enabling the engineers to install a robust and historically correct transmission brake and propshaft. Once the full installation has been completed, the Sunbeam will have the robust transmission its mighty engine deserves.

The 1920 Sunbeam 350hp can usually be seen on display at the National Motor Museum, as part of a multi-media presentation which also features its record-breaking stablemates the 1927 Sunbeam 1,000 hp, 1929 Golden Arrow and 1960 Bluebird CN7.

Although great strides have been made, a project such as this cannot be rushed. Further funding is always required for the ongoing preservation of the museum’s collection. If you are keen to help with funding support, please get in touch at [email protected].

The National Motor Museum’s collection of over 280 vehicles is world-famous, along with its extensive range of motoring artefacts, photographic images, specialist reference library and film and video library. For more information about its collection and services see www.nationalmotormuseum.org.uk

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Brand (Sunbeam)Featured (Land Speed Record)Place (Beaulieu)

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Casey M. Annis is the Founder and Editor of Vintage Road & Racecar magazine, as well as Editor of Alfa Owner, The Oily Rag and BMW Ultimate Classic magazines. He founded Parabolica Publishing in 1997 after a career in neurobiology. Along with his passion for automobiles, Casey is a long distance open-ocean paddleboard racer who’s competed over 10 times in the 32-mile Catalina to Manhattan Beach race and the 32-mile Molokai to Oahu race. Casey still contributes and writes about the world of vintage road and racecars and edits and curates the content for this website.
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