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July 21 Is the Important Anniversary of Automotive Speed That You Never Knew About
We live in an era of insane speed. While the transparent velocities achieved by the likes of Koenigsegg and Bugatti are almost hard to contextualize, they are a wonderful marker of just how far the automobile has come in its relatively short history. That said, before we ever dared to chase speeds in the 300-mph range, we had to get to triple digits. July 21 marks an important day in the canon of that pursuit.
It was on this day, 101 years ago, that the automobile broke the 100 mph barrier for the first time. French racing driver Louis Rigolly managed to push his Gobron-Brillié racer to 103.561 mph on the beach at Ostend, Belgium back in 1904, besting the 97.25 mph record set in 1903 by Belgian racer Pierre de Caters. For reference, that's four years before the Ford Model T was ever offered to the public. You'd be lucky to see Tin Lizzie make it to 45 mph in-period. While Rigolly's own record would only stand for a matter of months, his efforts remain an important footnote in humanity's pursuit of speed.
July 21, 1925 would bring yet another record for the automobile. Speed icon Sir Malcolm Campbell would average 150.766 mph over the course of two runs across the Pendine Sands in Carmarthenshire, Wales, adding another record to his extensive collection. His weapon of choice was a 350-hp Sunbeam-built racer known as 'Blue Bird', which remains one of the most famous machines of its era. Campbell would later go on to become the first person to break the 300 mph barrier in a car at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1935.
Ferrari would also tack its name onto this day in history back in 1987, pulling the cover off of the legendary F40 for the first time at the Civic Centre in Maranello. The F40 arrived as the first production car capable of breaking 200 mph, with a claimed top speed of 201. The car's record as the top-dog of the supercar world wouldn't last long, with the Jaguar XJ220 setting a new 217 mph record in 1993.
Here's to many more July 21 records to come.
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