Set of 4 black and white photos of the famous Birkin Blower Bentley single seater Brooklands outer-circuit racing car at speed at Brooklands track in England in the early 1930s.
Three of the photos show the car's owner-driver Sir Henry 'Tim' Birkin bt. at speed and a third shows the car appearing to be trundling back from a run, low on the banking, it's 'Brooklands can and fishtail' silencer system visible, puffing a little smoke of of the back.
This famous car used a supercharged 'blown' Bentley 4.5 litre engine of the type Birkin created to race at Le Mans much against the wishes of W O Bentley himself. The original Bentley chassis and body have been cut down to make this a single-seater and at one time it held the outright lap record at the famous track at a speed of nearly 140mph.
The Hon. Henry 'Tim' Birkin bt. was Britain's leading international racing driver of the early 30s and won Le Mans for Bentley before setting up his own company to fit superchargers to Bentley cars in an effort to keep them ahead of the Mercedes SS model which was pioneering supercharging on sports cars at the time. This caused friction with Bentley who disliked his tampering with their design. Bentley went bust due to the depression and Birkin later raced Maserati and Alfa Romeo (again winning Le Mans with Earl Howe in an 8C2300). He was rapidly forging a career as a Grand Prix driver when a burn on his forearm, caused by reaching into the cockpit of his Maserati to retrieve a cigarette lighter, turned septic and he died as a result! His racing at Brooklands had gained him great national acclaim although he always said he hated racing at the bumpy concrete oval and much preferred road courses - although there were none in Britain at the time, much to his annoyance.
7x5 inch (178x127mm)
