The incredible story of Wolverhampton’s famous Sunbeam car that missed its land speed record target

The Sunbeam-built supercar aimed to set a new world land speed record but fell short – so short that the company is said to have paid driver Kaye Don £5,000 for ‘damage to his reputation’ .

For Peter Morrey, who researched the story, it is also part of his family history, as his maternal grandfather, Percy Jones, was one of that Wolverhampton team that set out to conquer the world.

“The house was owned by Sunbeam before he bought it later. He was picked up in the morning in a chauffeur-driven car and driven home at the end of the day. That shows you what they think of Percy.” said Peter, a former member of Sunbeam owners’ society Talbot Darracq and one of the conservators of hundreds of Sunbeam photographs.

One of his photos shows Kaye Don in the driver’s seat of a model Silver Bullet with Percy kneeling beside him measuring the distance from the base of the seat to the pedals in the Experiment and Racing Department on the first floor of the works.

Born in Oswestry in 1884, Percy’s career began in the horse-drawn carriage era where he specialized in fine leather seats and cabin interiors. A master craftsman, he moved to the Daimler car company in 1904 as sub-director of the tuning shop, before being headhunted by Sunbeam in 1905 to become tuning shop manager there. At the time, the Wolverhampton company had just 20 workers, but Percy’s shearing shop alone was to grow to over 50 employees.

“Specialized in the design and construction of both driver and passenger seats and wood and steel car cabins from 1905 to 1935.

“Grandpa Percy had an enormous amount to do with the Silver Bullet and its driver Kaye Don, as he did with every race or record car, and all their drivers, measuring their body size and the fitment of the seats, the steering wheel. and pedals.

“My father Eric, who was Percy’s assistant at Sunbeam in the 1930s, told me about all the successes and failures of Sunbeam cars over the ages. He knew a lot of important Sunbeam people who lived in Wolverhampton, Bilston, Penn and area There were 4,500 workers there at the time, I could name many of them.

Sunbeam knew the sweet taste of record success, as in 1927 the Sunbeam 1000 hp, nicknamed The Slug, had set a new world land speed record of 203 mph.