Babs - The Story Behind A 1927 Landspeed Record Attempt That Ended In Disaster

John Godfrey Parry-Thomas woke up from a restless night. His room was pitch-black and cold, and the beach behind the narrow window had disappeared in a moonless night. He dragged the thin blanket all the way up to his chin and tried turning over towards the wall, but his legs and back hurt and he was shivering. The shirt in which he went to bed early was dripping with sweat. His cold had turned into a veritable flu over the last few days, and despite drinking liters of hot tea, he was only starting to get a bit better.

J.G. Parry-Thomas, whom everybody just called “Tommy”, felt miserable. The bed was far too narrow and short for a man of his size. Normally that didn’t bother him much - he often stayed in this room at the Beach Hotel - but with the additional flu, the 42-years-old man, measuring 1.92 m (6’3”) in size and weighing 90 kg (200 lbs), was just waiting for the dawn on this Thursday, the 3rd of March 1927.

The beach measures 11 km (6.8 mi) in length and 400 m (0.2 mi) in width when the tide of the Irish Sea is fully out. On the cliff at the western end of the beach, tourists stumble across the little village Pendine - not a romantic place, by any means. The paint on the few houses is chipping, yellowed curtains cover the windows, and a couple of stands serve greasy Fish ‘n’ Chips. If you decide to spend your holiday in one of the mobile homes at the main road, you better have a good book with you - desolation is in the air. The few people who live here spend their day watching the tide and waiting for tourists. There’s a small souvenir shop and, right at the beach, a shabby hotel where everybody who hates comfort and loves draughty rooms can stay for 25 pounds a night.

Behind the bar, a creaking staircase leads to the top floor, with dozens of pictures from the years 1927 and 1969 covering the decayed wallpaper. Many of these pictures show a giant race car, measuring almost seven meters in length, and a tall man who’s smiling shyly into the camera. On the other pictures, 42 years younger, a wreck is being dragged out of a hole which is filled knee-deep with water. Upstairs, four doors lead to four tiny rooms, and “Beach Hotel” is written on the stained red carpet.

John Godfrey Parry-Thomas, son of a curate from Wrexham, was born on April 6th 1884. He quickly became interested in technology, and in 1902 he went to London to study electrical engineering. Back in Wales, he first worked for several smaller companies, before he founded “Thomas Transmissions” with some financial help from his parents. During the first world war, Parry-Thomas was a government advisor, and in February of 1917, he became leading engineer at the truck company Leyland Motors.

Tommy became involved because Leyland was planning a special project - building the best car in the world. With his assistant Reid Railton he developed the Leyland Eight, a luxury car powered by a 7.3 liter V8 with 143 hp, which became the undoubted star of the 1920 London Auto Show. With a price of 2,700 pounds, the “Lion of Olympia” was virtually unaffordable, and only 18 were made over the course of three years. Before being delivered to their customers, Parry-Thomas measured the top speed of every single one of them. The open touring car had to reach 160 km/h (100 mph), just shy of the land speed record which back then was set at 199 km/h (125 mph).

After testing a Leyland Eight at the Brooklands race track, Parry-Thomas made a live-changing decision in 1922: He quit his job at Leyland to become a racing driver, with the goal of setting a new land speed record. He bought a used Leyland two-seater, painted it white and light blue, and on the 9th of November of the same year, he set his first record: 184 km/h (115 mph) in the 7.8 liter class. The British press loved him right from the beginning and gave him the nickname “Daredevil Thomas” - a legend was born.

The sand of Pendine is very fine-grained, and the beach is surprisingly flat. When the tide is all the way out, the beach forms a track which - back in the 1920s - was more suited for landspeed records than any paved road or race track. The process of accelerating, measuring the top speed and coming to a complete stop required a track that was at least 8 km (5 mi) long, and as stated in the magazine “Motor Cycle”, ‘Pendine Sands is the best natural race track you can find”.

John Godfrey Parry-Thomas had meanwhile climbed out of his bed, talking himself into believing that he already felt a lot better. The weather was also finally suited for the record attempt - Tommy and his team had been waiting for three whole days. At 12:30 PM, Babs was pushed onto the slipway to the east of the Beach Hotel, and rolled to the start line where the officials were already getting ready. There was Commander Mackenzie-Grieve, who was in charge of the general management; Major Leslie Callingham, Tommy’s technical advisor who had already travelled the entire length of the beach in a 4.5-liter Bentley to check the conditions; Harold “Jock” Pullen, Tommy’s mechanic; and Colonel Lindsay Lloyd who was in charge of the top speed measurement between the two flags which were placed exactly a mile apart. Further spectators were Mr. Buckley, representative of tire supplier Dunlop, Mr. Delacour from Shell, a couple dozen helpers who prepared the track, as well as some journalists.

Tommy still felt sick, but he told the journalists that it was the perfect day for attempting to beat the 281 km/h (175 mph) top speed which was the official record back then. The truth was: Parry-Thomas was desparate to beat Henry Seagrave to the punch - the American had proclaimed that he’d attempt to reach 200 mph (322 km/h) in Daytona Beach, Florida, and Tommy wasn’t too keen on disappointing the spectators. The rules said that Babs had to drive the entire distance twice - once in one direction, once in the other - so that the top speed, which was the calculated average of both runs, would not be affected by the often quite choppy winds at the beach.

After warming up the car, Tommy started his first attempt, but he was too slow. “I’m going back to the garage”, he told his engineers. “I need to tweak some things on the car. I’ll be back in an hour”. He replaced the custom-made spark plugs, changed the setup of the carburetor, and 20 minutes later, he and the car were back on the beach.

Tommy had bought the car that should later become known as “Babs” back in 1924. It was the former race car “Higham Special” of Count Zborowski, a racing driver who had died that year in Monza. Tommy thought that the chain-propelled car was well suited for an attempt to snatch the landspeed record from Malcom Campbell, who had set 235.22 km/h (146 mph) earlier that year in his modified Sunbeam nicknamed “Blue Bird”. Also, Tommy only had to pay 125 pounds for the race car, which was powered by a 12 cylinder, 27 liter “Liberty Aero Engine” - famous not only for being used in the first plane that managed to circle the earth, but also in the police boats of the NYPD during Prohibition. The engine already made 600 hp, but Tommy needed more. He replaced the two carburetors by four new ones, built a new clutch for the 4-speed Benz gearbox, swapped the Benz front axle for a Leyland one, and tweaked the body to be even more aerodynamic. The only thing left to do was choosing a new name, and Tommy decided to go for “Babs” - nobody knew why. A secret love affair with a girl called Barbara? A remote relative, maybe? Tommy himself claimed that his inspiration came from one of his mechanics, who had written “Baby” with chalk onto the engine block.

Nevertheless, the hunt for a new record was still on. Malcom Campbell improved his former record in 1925, setting 242.6 km/h (151 mph) in Pendine Sands. Tommy’s first record attempt had to be cancelled due to the bad weather conditions, and half a year later, there was a third competitor: Henry Seagrave, who had reached 245.1 km/h (152 mph) on a beach north of Liverpool.

But now came the time of Parry-Thomas. On April 27th 1926, he managed a fabulous top speed of 272.4 km/h (169 mph) on the beach of Pendine, two days later even 275.2 km/h (171 mph) - world record! But Tommy hadn’t reached his goal just yet. First of all, there was still a competitor - Seagrave who had, as mentioned previously, claimed to attempt beating the 200 mph (321 km/h) mark in Daytona. Secondly, Tommy was worried about the competitive advantages in the United States. In 1926, he stated in an article: “We can still clame to be building the fastest cars in the world, but we have to realize that more and more records are being beaten by the Americans”. According to him, reason for the American’s advantages were the better financial situation and the better race tracks on the other side of the Pacific. Tommy knew that he was running out of time, and to make matters worse, he lost his record to Malcom Campbell who hit 281.4 km/h (175 mph) on February 4th, 1927. Three and a half weeks later, a flu-suffering Parry-Thomas checked in to the Beach Hotel.

On that day, the 3rd of March 1927, Tommy and Babs were back at the beach after only 20 minutes, at around 14:30 PM. Everything was set for a new world record attempt. The first run was facing east, so away from the Beach Hotel. After 3.6 km (2.2 mi), Babs blasted past the first flag on the beach which indicated the start of the top speed measurement, then the little shack in which the run was being monitored, and then the second flag which indicated the end of the run. Tommy was about to set a marvelous new world record - the result of the first run was over 300 km/h (186 mph).

Then, the mind-boggling happened. From the distance, Major Callingham and Jock Pullen in the Bentley had to witness how Babs began to skid. For about 200m (660 ft), the car blasted uncontrollably across the beach, then rolled over, slid along upside down, then came back onto its three remaining wheels and made a 270-degree left turn due to one of the wheels sitting at a very grotesque angle. Then Babs came to a stop, facing the Irish Sea, and caught on fire. A thick black cloud of smoke went up into the clear and cold march sky.

Callingham and Pullen were the first to reach the wreck, and what they saw was sheer horror. Tommy was hanging halfway-in, halfway-out of the car, with his skull sliced open by a drive chain. It wasn’t easy rescuing the tall and heavy man from the burning wreck - his shoes had already caught fire, and the two helpers had to break both his legs to yank him out of the car. They carried their dead friend away from the burning race car, put him down onto the sand and covered him with a jacket. By the time the officials, spectators and journalists reached the site of the crash, the fire had been put out, and a scary silence was hanging over the beach.

Immediately after the crash, rumors started rising as to what had happened. A forensic doctor examined that “Mr. Thomas died in cause of a head injury following a car crash”, and remarked that the skull was almost completely sliced into two. The death must have been instantaneous, so quickly in fact that Tommy didn’t feel a thing the moment it happened. One of the rumors claimed that Parry-Thomas took his feet off the gas pedal too quickly, and when he released the clutch, the right drive chain snapped and smashed into his head. Other people claim that the left front tire burst, and that the head injuries resulted from the rollover - this theory is heavily questioned, though.

The most reasonable explanation comes from Reid Railton, a friend of Parry-Thomas and former co-worker at Leyland. Devastated by the death of his friend, he immediately flew to Wales, where he had a look at the wreckage. He found a deep groove in the right chain wheel, which could only have been caused by something harder than the wheel itself. Then he discovered a spoke of the right rear wheel, which fit exactly into the groove. Railton therefore concluded that the right rear wheel collapsed, causing Tommy to lean out of the car to look what had happened. The snapped spoke burst the drive chain which then sliced through Tommy’s skull. Blood stains on the right side of Babs reinforce this theory, but still, it was never proven completely.

In the following days, dozens of condolence letters and flowers arrived at the beach hotel. Somebody even sent a big model of a car made entirely from violets. The accompanying card didn’t include a name, only the words “Ride on, ride on, in majesty”. The corpse of John Godfrey Parry-Thomas was transported to Weybridge, before it was buried in Brooklands on March 7th.

But what should happen to the remainings of the car? Some suggested throwing it into the Irish Sea, but in the end, it was agreed that the car should be buried on the beach. A hole, 8 meters in length, 3 meters in width and 2 meters deep, was dug near the dunes. To prevent treasure hunters from digging it back out, all the engine components were destroyed - even the cylinder block. Even Tommy’s coat and the cracked helmet were cut into pieces, and the only piece of the car that was saved was the wooden steering wheel. Until the mid 70s, it decorated a wall of the London-based racing club “The Steering Wheel”, then it disappeared without a trace.

But the story isn’t over yet, because on March 29th 1969 - 42 years after the accident - race car restorer Owen Wyn Owen and a couple of friends intended to bring the car back to life. By looking at old pictures, they were able to identify the exact location of the buried wreck, and started digging. The first impression wasn’t all that bad - despite having spent 42 years unter the surface of the earth, the car still seemed to be restorable. Wyn Owen transported it to his home in Capel Curig in the north of Wales to inspect it further. The frame was heavily bent, many of the aluminum parts were missing, and all the remains of the powertrain were rusted in. The carburetors had to be replaced as well as the camshafts - the only parts that were still salvageable were the light blue colored steel body panels.

Naturally, the restauration proved to be quite difficult - but with lots of help from the British car industry, he found a new replacement gearbox, and a retired marine officer even donated a working Liberty Aero Engine from one of his motor boats. Dunlop hooked Wyn Owen up with reproduction tires, and replacement for the ancient drive chains were sourced from Germany. After two and a half years of hard work, Babs was running again - Owen Wyn Owen had tears in his eyes when he saw flames spitting out of the twelve exhaust pipes. After a first test drive, the body was also brought back to its original state, and the car got its own little museum - the “Pendine Museum of Speed”. It’s free to visit, and only has one room overlooking the beach, where the race car is parked from Easter until autumn. The museum is is in a similar state as the entire village - paint is chipping off the walls, and water’s leaking through the ceiling. Since 2004, motor vehicles are no longer allowed to drive on the Beach of Pendine, and its last landspeed record attempt was hosted in 2002.

Henry Seagrave meanwhile set a new landspeed record three weeks after Tommy’s death, and was the first to break the 200 mph mark. Tommy knew that in the long run, he wouldn’t stand a chance against rivals like him - at least not with Babs. Long before his tragic accident he had started working on a new race car which used a drive shaft instead of drive chains. As we know, he never managed to finish it, though - as he was killed by a drive chain. Irony of fate.

A couple of months after his death, it was discovered that he had founded a charity project. He wanted to collect money to help seriously ill children from London’s Great Ormon Street Hospital. The project had been kept secret, but numerous big companies had supported it. The highest sum that was donated after his death from a private person was 20 pounds. The check had been signed by a person named Barbara “Babs” Cooper.

Yikes, that was a long article. I really hope you read it, I’ve been working on this for months. Feel free to leave some comments down below!
Tobi aka The Stig’s German Cousin