‘The tremendous roar of a Merlin’ by Tony Hutchings
The prototype Hawker Hurricane K5083 at Brooklands on 6th November 1935 (Brooklands Society Archive).
was on the throne and Stanley Baldwin had taken over from Ramsay MacDonald in ‘Number10’. Franklin D Roosevelt occupied the White House and the Italians were trying to occupy Abyssinia. Nearer to home Freddie Dixon had won the British Racing Drivers Club British Empire Trophy race in July driving his Riley, whilst the following month Gwenda Stewart achieved the ladies’ Outer Circuit lap record in her Derby-Miller at 135.95mph. In October John Cobb also took an Outer Circuit record at 143.44mph in the Napier- Railton, a record never to be beaten. Conversations in the Clubhouse dining room might have centred on Campbell’s new Land Speed Record of 301mph, William Lyons’ introduction of the Jaguar SS100 competition two-seater or the fact that W O Bentley had joined the Lagonda company in Staines. Then there were the expectations regard- ing new Track records, as attempts on existing records were a familiar sight at the end of the racing season. No doubt forecasts were made of who might make the best time on the Mountain Circuit, a record held since the previous October by Whitney Straight in his Maserati who achieved a speed of 82.05mph to take the Class D record. One person with his sight on this particular
1935
record was Richard Shuttleworth. He had competed at Brooklands since 1931, driving every- thing from an Austin Seven to Alfa Romeos. He was also as good a pilot as he was a racing driver, gaining his A licence at Brooklands in 1932. In
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had been quite a year and it wasn’t over quite yet. George V
1935 he competed in his supercharged 2.3-litre Bugatti and the P3 monoposto Alfa. After the racing season had finished Richard returned to the Mountain Circuit on Wednesday 6th November 1935 to have another try for the lap record. Driving the P3 he covered the 1.17 miles in 51.33 seconds, taking the record by the narrowest of margins at 82.06mph, for which he was awarded the Daily Telegraph Trophy. Anyone standing in the Paddock or around the Mountain Circuit would have been thrilled by the sound of the supercharged, eight- cylinder 2.9-litre Alfa as Richard put his foot down and the engine produced its full 255bhp. Another exciting sound may well have caught people’s attention, coming from the Byfleet end of Brooklands – the revolutionary Rolls-Royce 12- cylinder PV12 engine was being tested over on the airfield. This power unit, later to be known as the ‘Merlin’ engine, was about to pull the ‘High Speed Monoplane’ prototype, later to be known as the Hawker ‘Hurricane’ into the sky. However, to begin at the beginning and set the scene for this momentous event some background details regarding Sopwith’s and Hawker’s history might be appropriate. Thomas Sopwith opened his fly- ing school at Brooklands on 1st February 1912. Together with his mechanic Fred Sigrist and the Australian pilot Harry Hawker he formed the Sopwith Aviation Company in the same year, with works in Kingston-upon-Thames. The difficulties the aviation industry faced at the end of World War I resulted in the liquidation of the company in September 1920. Almost immediately a new
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