He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times, using vehicles called blue bird, including a 1921 grand prix sunbeam. The pursuit of happiness, so close, yet tantalisingly beyond reach, seemed to symbolise his own determined pursuit of ever faster speeds. Sir malcolm campbell broke the speed record another nine times in various bluebird cars powered by both napier and rolls royce engines
These records were as follows Malcolm campbell gave his first racing cars boring names before being captivated by the theme of maeterlinck’s symbolist operatic fantasy, the blue bird, in 1912 Each of campbell’s racing cars and hydroplanes was named bluebird, for the play l’oiseau bleu (“the bluebird”) by the belgian dramatist maurice maeterlinck
On september 3, 1935, sir malcolm campbell, at age fifty, piloted this last blue bird, and set a land speed record of 301.13 mph at bonneville Due to timing and scoring problems, the speed was not confirmed until the next day as preparations were being made for another run. The overall layout and the simple twin deep chassis rails remained, but little else.
