So you went over 200kph on the expressway, uh? Feeling nice about it? Stop bragging. Someone did just that in a car almost acenutry ago. Welcome to the fast lane.

I remember stories related by my late uncle, a regular business visitor to Europe in the seventies and eighties. Every time he came back, he would not forget to tell me about the different cars he had driven and the speeds he had managed on the autobahns. To a young me, these were very inspirational and my imagination was fired especially the time he told me about driving a rental BMW 7-Series in Germany at 220kph – after missing a flight.
About a year ago, I had the opportunity of taking an Audi A6 to an indicated 240kph and I must say I felt quite chuffed. It meant that I had bragging rights (straight line speed and just for a few days) over Armaan Ebrahim and I did manage to tell him – 'I've driven faster than you'. Of course, that was before he started racing in the A1GP series. But if one starts to look at the larger picture, about when landmark speeds like 100kph, 200kph, etc were first achieved, one is quite humbled. Today I think nothing of taking my header-assisted Premier Padmini to an indicated 130kph (10kph more, if downhill!) and no; the speedometer needle does not shake, rattle and roll all the way. But when was the first time anybody ever touched 100kph?
Would you believe April 1899? That's right – 1899! Even more amazing was the fact that it was done very quietly as the vehicle was powered by electricity – two direct-drive motors linked to the rear wheels. Camille Jenatzy was a Belgian and a racing driver to boot. On April 29 of that year, his vehicle named La Jamais Contente touched just under 106kph to make him the first man to cross the 100kph barrier. Jenatzy was known to be a bit of a prankster and sadly, this proved to be his undoing. In 1913, on a hunting trip, he hid behind a bush and made noises like an animal. Unfortunately, his trigger-happy friends shot at the bush and injured him and he died on his way to hospital. A sad end for one who was also a Gordon Bennet Cup race winner.
It took another decade before anybody could touch the next speed landmark – 200kph. In 1909, on November 6, this was achieved by Victor Héméry in a Benz. It was the year that the Indianapolis Speedway had opened in Indianapolis. He too was an experienced race driver with victories in Europe and the USA, against the likes of Louis Chevrolet and Felice Nazzaro. He had already set a speed record of 175kph in 1905 in a Darracq at Arles, France. But it was after he changed jobs and joined Benz in 1907 that he was really ably to take a crack at becoming the first person to drive a car at over 200kph. The car was the famous Blitzen Benz and Héméry took it up to 202.6kph at Brooklands in Weybridge, England, the world's first purpose-built race track and scene of many famous races.
The 300kph mark , however, took a little more doing and time to reach. It was achieved on a different continent – North America. Car and engine development was coming along quite well in the 1920s. From 200kph, the record speed inched towards the 300kph mark with as many as 11 different drivers, which included Henry Segrave, Malcolm Campbell and Parry Thomas, who nudged it up over the next eight years. But it was Segrave who on March 29, 1927 took a 1000hp Sunbeam to over 300kph at Daytona Beach, to become the first man to touch triple ton and do it comprehensively at 327.89kph. Segrave had started his racing career in 1919. He joined the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq team in 1921, won the 1923 French GP before setting his sights on the land speed record. Segrave died while setting a water speed record in 1930 on Lake Windermere after his boat hit a submerged log and disintegrated. The Sunbeam 1000hp, not to be confused with the Sunbeam Tiger that was a 4-litre V12 track-racing car specially developed for the 1926 racing season, was designed by Jack Irving and had two 22.4-litre Sunbeam Matabele aero-engines powering it.
Just to put things into proper perspective and also highlight the enormity of the achievement, there are very few cars even today that can touch 300kph with ease. In 1950, an Indy-spec Kurtis-Offenhauser had a top speed of 240kph while the Jaguar C-Type of the same period had a top speed of 230kph. The Mercedes W196 had a top speed of 280kph. Only in the eighties did sportscars manage to go over 300kph, like the Jaguar XJR-9 that had a top speed of 350kph while the McLaren F1 topped out at 370kph.

To get to 400kph from 300kph was a matter of just five years. Segrave, Malcolm Campbell and a few others took turns at taking the speed record up to 395.96kph in 1931 but on the 24th of February, 1932 it was Malcolm Campbell of the United Kingdom who drove his Bluebird to 404kph and then 408 at Daytona Beach in the US of A. Campbell was a regular at the Brooklands circuit in England campaigning cars like Talbots, Bugattis and even a Delage GP car with a supercharged straight-eight engine. Campbell is one of few drivers to have broken records at almost all the major proving grounds like Pendine Sands, Daytona Beach and the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA.
The 500kph barrier was breached another five years later by Captain George ET Eyston of the United Kingdom, when on November 19, 1937 he took his twin-Rolls-Royce engined Thunderbolt to 502kph at the Bonneville Salt Flats, in the process covering the measured mile in 10.17seconds. Invited to speak at the Empire Club of Canada in 1938, Eyston tried to put his achievement into perspective by explaining to the audience that his 44in-diameter tyres were revolving at a speed of 45 revolutions per second. To put that into perspective today, how many supercars in the world can do 500kph ? Hardly any, even though the record was set 69 years ago when a lot of us had not even been thought of! Fact is there is no supercar today that can touch 500kph although there are a few threatening to go over the 400kph mark. Why production cars, even thoroughbred racing cars have difficulty getting to 400kph. Recently the Honda F1 team made a special attempt at getting a Formula One car to do 400kph but only managed to average 397kph, though the team did touch 400kph on one of its runs.
From 500kph to the equally magical mark of 1000kph took almost half a century – 46 years to be more accurate. Yes, the bar was being nudged higher and higher over the years – 600kph (JR Cobb) came up in 1947, 700kph and then 800kph (both Craig Breedlove) in 1964 and 900kph in 1965. On October 4, 1983 on the Black Rock Desert in the USA, Richard Noble of the United Kingdom took his turbojet powered Thrust 2 to a speed of 1019.47kph. Yes, the American Gary Gabelich had reached 1000kph in 1970 but that was achieved in his Blue Flame rocket-powered vehicle. Richard Noble was also the project director of the Thrust SSC project, which currently holds the Land Speed Record of 1227.988kph or Mach 1.02 driven by Andy Green.
So, what is it like to do 500kph in a land speed record attempt? According to Captain George ET Eyston, the Bonneville Salt Flats was like a large field of gleaming salt, stretching between the mountains of West Utah and Nevada. The car was helped along the straight for a bit before the engines were switched on. Because of the need to keep them cool, the mixture was kept very rich, causing exhaust smoke to billow out behind the car. At full speed, this trail of smoke was about three and a half miles long. Eyston shifted from second gear to top gear at just under 320kph. At which point, the distance indicating posts were rapidly becoming a blur. Stopping the Thunderbolt was another matter – no hard-on-the-brakes stuff but deploying an airbrake after shutting the engines down. Only when the speed had dropped down drastically could the mechanical brakes be applied, so until then one just had to sit and 'enjoy' the hairy ride.
That's the way to set a new land speed record!