The National Motor Museum is taking the iconic Sunbeam 350hp vehicle to Pendine in Carmarthenshire, Wales to celebrate the centenary anniversary of its World Land Speed Record in 1925.
The Museum tells us:
(Photograph and all words from The National Motor Museum).
The car christened ‘Blue Bird’ by its driver Sir Malcolm Campbell MBE, was the first to exceed 150 mph (240 km/h). The World Land Speed Record of 150.766 mph (242.628 km/h) was set at Pendine beach, Carmarthenshire, Wales on the 21 July 1925*. Now part of the vehicle collection at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, the Museum is celebrating this feat of British engineering and the centenary of the historic event.
The Sunbeam will be on display outside the Museum of Land Speed at Pendine from 10am on the 21 July 2025. National Motor Museum engineers will aim to take it on to the beach for a static photo opportunity and start up the record-breaker at Pendine to mark the 100th anniversary, before putting it on show again outside the Museum until 5pm**.
National Motor Museum Trust Chief Executive Jon Murden said: “We are excited to honour such a landmark World Land Speed Record anniversary with this and other events this year, which will both celebrate its importance in motoring history and provide more opportunities to see Blue Bird.”
The Sunbeam 350hp will have been to the Heveningham Concours and to the Bluebird Restaurant in Chelsea before its appearance in Pendine, and will return to Beaulieu where it is on permanent display with other Land Speed Record breakers Sunbeam 1000hp, Golden Arrow and the Bluebird CN7. The Museum is also home to an Icons of Formula 1 display this summer making it the venue to see brilliant examples of sporting and technical excellence in pursuit of the thrill of speed.
This isn’t the first time the Sunbeam 350hp has returned to Pendine. It visited the famous stretch of sands in 2015 following completion of the painstaking rebuild of the 1920 Sunbeam’s complex V12 engine enabling supporters to hear it roar again.
For the 2025 celebration a section on the National Motor Museum website is dedicated to the history on the Sunbeam 350hp – https://nationalmotormuseum.org.uk/sunbeam-350hp-blue-bird/
Specially commissioned limited-edition commemorative merchandise is also available from the National Motor Museum providing opportunities to help the Museum fund similar vehicle restoration projects in the future as well as being an attractive collectable.
Additional Information:
*The World Land Speed Record of 150.766 mph (242.628 km/h) was officially set in the Sunbeam 350hp at Pendine beach, Carmarthenshire, Wales on the 21 July 1925. Although the best run over the mile had reached 152.833 mph (245.961 km/h).
**The ‘Blue Bird’ will be on display outside the Museum of Land Speed from 10am on Monday, July 21, before moving onto the beach for photographs between 11am and 12 noon.