Visit shines light on family links with the Sunbeam 1000hp

Restoration of the Sunbeam 1000HP land speed record car – the first vehicle to take the record above 200mph – continues apace at The National Motor Museum at Beaulieu.

Curators at the Museum are always delighted when we receive visitors at Beaulieu who have a direct connection with Sunbeam at Wolverhampton and worked on the 1000hp as well as other competition vehicles.  

Keith Purser, whose father Leonard was an engineer at the Moorfield Works, called by to give the museum a small quantity of material relating to the Sunbeam 1000hp as well as the later Silver Bullet* record car.

Keith, a retired engineer, was born in Wolverhampton and now lives in East Sussex was able to tell us something of his father’s time with Sunbeam. 

Leonard Purser was born in 1905 and served his apprenticeship with the company eventually becoming a qualified engineer working primarily on engines. Keith recalls his father telling him about machining components such as crankshafts in sometimes less than ideal conditions.  Keith believes that his father left Sunbeam at the time of the takeover by the Rootes Group in the mid-1930s and later pursued an independent career with commercial vehicles.

During his visit, Keith was able to meet members of The National Motor Museum's engineering team that has been making great progress in returning the car to full working order.  

The National Motor Museum is always pleased to make contact with anyone, particularly from Wolverhampton, whose family was involved with this highly important record-breaking car.  There remain several gaps in the car’s history that we would love to be able to fill.  If you can help, please contact us at The National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, Brockenhurst Hampshire SO42 7ZN or call us on 01590 614650 to get in touch with a member of the National Motor Museum team.

*The Silver Bullet (that was also fitted with twin V12 engines) was Sunbeam’s final land speed record car – the firm had already achieved five outright world records from 1922 to 1927 with Kenelm Lee Guinness, Malcolm Campbell, and Henry Segrave – and also ran at Daytona Beach early in 1930 but sadly they failed to repeat their previous successes although did achieve some distance records.  It was later purchased by Southport hotelier and garage owner Jack Field who tested it on Southport Beach – the scene of Henry Segrave’s 1926 land speed record - but technical issues and poor running forced him to abandon the idea of setting any records and the car then languished in Field’s hotel car park before eventually being scrapped.