Classic shrine: Pendine Museum of Land Speed

By Steve Cropley

| 3 Oct 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Classic shrine: Pendine Museum of Land Speed

‘In the chronicles of human effort, this corner of Carmarthenshire can take its place alongside Mount Everest and Cape Kennedy.’

So says the official citation that describes Pendine Sands’ impressive new Museum of Land Speed, a beautifully situated, pristine and architecturally exciting building that opened last year to celebrate the many heroic speed-record attempts that have taken place on the historic beach it overlooks.

The striking Museum of Land Speed in Pendine battles with its location for attention, but the landscape wins out

The smart new building would ordinarily be modern enough and imposing enough to dominate any setting.

But at this museum’s home on the south-western coast of Wales, the sheer grandeur of the natural surroundings takes centre stage: an impossibly vast expanse of flat, sandy Carmarthenshire beach spreads out in front of Pendine, a coastal settlement of around 500 souls that doubles its population during the holiday seasons.

Pendine village faces southwards so, even in winter, copious quantities of diffused light bounce off the sea to give the place a striking brightness, interrupted only on stormy days when the whole beach turns into a gleaming expanse of rainwater that quickly drains miraculously away.

The impressive wall chart at the Museum of Land Speed puts the records set at Pendine in context (left); mock-up workshop displays the tools of the trade

It is the greatest natural apron imaginable, and a unique drawcard for car enthusiasts of all persuasions: the beach runs eastwards for a full seven miles along the Carmarthen Bay coastline, and when the tide recedes, the beach reaches more than half a mile directly out to sea.

But when Sir Malcolm Campbell, the first of Britain’s great ‘speed kings’ to use the place for record runs, arrived in 1924, he didn’t dwell on the scenery.

He came because he’d discovered that his usual stomping ground, the famed 2.75-mile Brooklands banked circuit to the south-west of London, simply couldn’t offer enough accelerating or slowing-down space for the 150mph-plus runs he knew would be needed to eclipse the then-current world Land Speed Record of 145.89mph – which was set by Ernest Eldridge in a mammoth 21.7-litre Fiat-engined car called Mephistopheles and run, remarkably, on a French public road.

Pendine’s spectacular sea view, just outside the Museum of Land Speed

Campbell and his 350bhp Sunbeam V12, a secondhand Brooklands racer he had dubbed Blue Bird and repainted the appropriate colour, were not new to record-breaking or to beach racing.

Campbell had already taken the car as far afield as Denmark in search of records, but that effort proved disastrous: the car shed a tyre which killed a spectator.

Pendine, meanwhile, was already popular for speed events: its welcoming expanses began to be used for car and motorcycle racing soon after 1900, and it was the official venue for the Welsh TT from 1922 onwards.

One motorcycle magazine of the time described it as ‘the finest natural speedway imaginable’.

A plaque commemorates some of Pendine’s record-breakers

Then, in 1924, it was officially surveyed for Land Speed Record use, with two-mile expanses marked out for accelerating and slowing down either side of a measured mile.

Coming to Pendine provided Campbell with a whole new impetus.

In a three-year golden period between 1924 and 1927, the World Land Speed Record was pushed forward on this Welsh beach to nearly 175mph, in four steps.

The protagonists were Campbell and his first great rival, JG Parry-Thomas, who had a 27-litre aero-engined car called ‘Babs’.

The wooden slide demonstrates aerodynamic efficiency on a small scale

The record passed back and forth, but early in 1927 Parry-Thomas was killed while trying to regain the record Campbell had set a few weeks earlier.

Parry-Thomas will always be the speed king most closely associated with Pendine, not just because of his exploits and death there, but also because Babs – which began life as the Liberty-engined Higham Special, built for Count Louis Zborowski and bought by Parry-Thomas after Zborowski’s death in 1924 – was buried for 42 years in the Pendine sandhills after the Welshman’s own fatal accident.

It was controversially exhumed in 1969 and subsequently restored over many years.

Hands-on exhibits help make Pendine’s Land Speed Record story an interactive experience

Together, Campbell and Parry-Thomas established that the speed limit at Pendine was well short of the 200mph that had originally been visualised by the most ambitious speed kings.

At 170mph-plus, the variability of the surface, the rolling resistance of the sand and the presence of tiny gutters caused by the receding tide made any extra pace extremely perilous.

What’s more, rivals on the other side of the Atlantic were starting to go very quickly indeed on Florida’s Daytona Beach.

After Parry-Thomas’ death, record-breaking moved across the Atlantic to Daytona, widely acknowledged as an even bigger and faster venue.

You can test your designs in the Museum of Land Speed’s miniature wind tunnel

Campbell’s Pendine best wasn’t beaten for 88 years, until actor and action man Idris Elba advanced it to 180mph in 2015, driving a roadgoing Bentley Continental GT.

The Pendine Museum of Speed, whose new building succeeds a considerably less impressive 30-year-old structure that is now demolished, is intended to commemorate both that early world-beating Campbell/Thomas period and the exploits of many other speed-chasers at Pendine before and since, whose details are comprehensively recorded on museum wall charts.

Over the years, there has been a wide variety of speed events, more recently staged by clubs such as the Straightliners and the Vintage Hot Rod Association.

This Douglas motorcycle is among the two-wheeled exhibits at the Museum of Land Speed

In 2013, the speed-loving ’biker Guy Martin even used the beach to set a new World Record speed for a pedal bicycle at 112.9mph, employing a racing truck as a windbreak.

Until 2005, any visitor could drive on the beach – and you still can if you’re prepared to pay £2000 a day and organise prior permission through Carmarthenshire’s local authorities.

Since the Second World War, however, the MoD has controlled much of the beach’s eastern expanses for experimental purposes.

The tale of ‘Babs’ and JG Parry-Thomas’ record attempts is told in immersive detail

It acquired the land in 1940 to develop WW2 weaponry and train troops for the Normandy landings; it has been used more recently to trial aircraft ejector seats and for drone testing, and at one stage Hercules transport aircraft performed ‘touch and go’ landings on the wide tracts of sand.

These days it is still used as a firing range, which is why even today, if you stray too far east from the museum, you can expect to be stopped by the Army.

The museum itself makes a fine destination for a classic car journey or meeting.

The Museum of Land Speed’s trophy cabinet alone is enough to chart the successes achieved at Pendine by those chasing speed-record glory

For part of the year its star exhibit is Parry-Thomas’ famous Babs, and there is a vast array of supporting imagery: period photographs, video presentations, interactive displays and artefacts from the old days ensure that even when the car itself is absent, the museum remains a fascinating destination.

A full-sized wire-frame representation of the famous record-breaker descends from the ceiling to occupy the space of the real one – which has a busy annual programme of appearances at venues such as Goodwood and Brooklands.

Visitors can model their own differently shaped cars and send them down a slide to experiment with aerodynamics.

The Museum of Land Speed’s rich photo archive helps illustrate Pendine’s story

When we visited there was also an excellent presentation of future transport models created by design students at the University of Wales, showcased in a separate display area. There are impressive conference facilities, too.

Best of all, though, is a theatre-based ‘Babs Experience’ that graphically – and aurally – puts you in the driver’s seat.

In all, visiting is a fascinating experience and well worth the long drive many will make.

This fact emphasises the museum authorities’ central purpose in building the place: to expand the tourist appeal of the region, to attract attendances beyond the summer months and to boost employment and the local economy.

That’s one good reason why Pendine’s Museum of Speed is adjoined to a 14-room hotel, with an integral restaurant and a bank of EV chargers just outside.

‘Babs’: JG Parry-Thomas’ record-breaker

‘Babs’ is on semi-permanent display, but has a calendar of engagements elsewhere. When absent, a metal-frame model takes its place on the plinth

The 27-litre Liberty-engined, single-seater record-breaker ‘Babs’, as used by JG Parry-Thomas to battle Sir Malcolm Campbell for land-speed supremacy, spends most of its year in the Pendine Museum of Land Speed.

Restored over 15 years to prime running order, it had been buried for 42 years in the Pendine sandhills after Parry-Thomas’ tragic death there, before being controversially recovered and rebuilt by the late Owen Wyn Owen, then an engineering lecturer at Bangor Technical College and a well-known vintage-car enthusiast.

These days the LSR legend is driven and displayed by Owen’s son, Geraint, and when it is away from the museum, a full-sized tubular facsimile is winched down from the roof to show its dimensions and profile.

‘Until 2005, any visitor could drive right on the beach – and you still can if you pay £2000 a day’

After being interred for four decades, the car suffered from a great deal of decay and corrosion, and some of its original panels are displayed to show the extent of the restoration that was needed (above).

Nowadays, the car looks as good as it did in the 1920s: there’s really no reason why it shouldn’t see out another century.

Images: Max Edleston

The knowledge

Name Pendine Museum of Land Speed
Address Marsh Road, Pendine, Carmarthen SA33 4NY
Where? On the beachfront near the public car park
How much? Adults £7, concessions £6, children (5-18) £4; flexible ticket for small groups (4+) offers 10% reduction
Opening hours 9 April-30 June: Tues-Sun, 10am-5pm; 1 July-1 September: closed Mon, Tues 10am-5pm, Weds/Thurs 10:30am-6:30pm, Fri-Sun 10am-5pm
Tel 01267 228696
Web cofgar.wales