Here's the old lady - 'The Slug' driven by Henry Segrave pushed the World Land Speed Record above 200mph for the first time. Those body panels hadn't been off for several years.
This massive side trunking - one each side - ducts air into the hip-mounted radiators which are just behind the cockpit, Lotus 72-ish, ahead of the rear-mounted Matabele V12 engine.
All the fixtures and fittings, and the manner in which the fuel tank is slung in the tail, are reminiscent of the Sunbeam 'Cub' GP car. No mistaking the pedigree of these babies...right down to Sunbeam's own thin-head bolts, thin nuts, slim washers, fine threaded shanks...all saving weight, even in such a monster as this...
Here's the rear engine, shot from astern, showing its battery of four ignition magnetos. The gizmo on the tail of that left-bank camshaft - also shown in my initial shots at the start of this thread - is the air-start distributor. It has a central connector for an air hose from an external compressor. High pressure air would then be pumped into it and distributed around the engine to start it turning, and drawing in mixture, whereupon the mags would be switched on, the ignition would spark and (at some point) away the Matabele would go, spitting violet flame from those vertical stub exhausts...and deafening everyone in the vicinity. Once that engine was running it was time to attend to starting the one at the front, which would be turned over by coupling it to the running rear engine.
Now here's what was more or less de Hane Segrave's view while all this was going on, give or take a body panel or two. The power take-off shaft from the rear engine ran to the left of his seat, into that lateral transfer box within the casing that would have been beside his left knee. Drive was taken through this by spur gears to the left, then back through the gearbox seen in my introductory pic - post 1 - and then via a diff to the countershaft across the car just behind the driver's seat, Each end of this countershaft carried a primary drive sprocket powering chains which drove to secondary sprockets bolted concentric with the rear wheels and so driving them. The car could be driven on the rear engine alone, and was indeed demonstrated in this manner just pre-war at Brooklands - which I think was the last time she ever ran under her own power.
Here are Segrave's pedals - the record-breaking loud pedal just that tiny spoon to the right...how disappointing...
But take note of the clutch housing to the front engine, within the scuttle-space there, to the left of, and beyond, the driver's feet.
On the left here you can see that clutch housing, and the engagement lever just to its rear, totally beyond the reach of the seated driver. What the Sunbeam crrew would do, once the rear engine was running would be to detail an intrepid mechanic to lean in, over this vibrating piece of thuggery, and use that tall lever to engage this clutch, which would then couple the drive from the rear engine to the front-mounted Matabele, and so kick it over in its own start sequence. Once the front engine had struck up, its drive could then be directed back into the transmission system and so to the rear-wheel chains. Oh, by the way, note the thin cable extending forward along the side of that massive chassis rail. Cable brakes, no less...
And finally, here's the left-rear drive sprocket, just visible within its 'armoured' casing... Segrave was pretty well protected against suffering a similar fate to poor Parry Thomas.
All Photos Strictly Copyright: The GP Library (access courtesy the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, Hants, England)
I just thought you'd all like to see 'The Slug' in all her glory. Like Olga from The Volga - no great beauty, but dashed effective.
DCN
Edited by Doug Nye, 24 August 2011 - 08:15.