British Land Speed Record pioneer Ernest Eldridge was born on this day in 1897. The automobile engineers racing career began in 1921, when he began driving an Isotta-Frashini. A year later, he shocked the Brooklands crowd with a 20-litre Maybach aero-engined racer, but it was with his Fiat special – named Mephistopheles – with which he had his greatest success. He set a new record for a half-mile standing start at Brooklands in 1923 before breaking the world Land Speed Record at Arpajon, France in July 1924, posting an average speed of 145.89mph over the flying mile. It would be the last Land Speed Record recorded on a public road and smashed the previous record of 124.09mph set by Lydston Hornsted at Brooklands 10 years earlier.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 07:30:00 +0000
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