Centenary Celebration: Southport Commemorates Sir Henry Segrave's Historic Land Speed Record

On March 16th it will be a hundred years since Sir Henry Segrave broke the land speed record on Ainsdale beach in a Sunbeam Tiger that reached 152.33 mph with an engine little more powerful than a modern 3 series BMW or a VW Golf.

There is planned event around that time organised by Aintree Circuit Club on Ainsdale beach to celebrate the historic even- when people will be able to see the car and other vehicles of that vintage- definitely running in much more sedate fashion.

After 1926 attempts to break the land speed record moved to the USA.

Liberal Democrat councillor, John Pugh, believes this is a huge opportunity for Southport to glory in its motoring history, but also an opportunity to inspire the engineers of the future. 

“ This will attract international attention to the town. We have a remarkable motoring history and were once a town with its own auto manufacturer -Vulcan- who moved from Yellow House Lane to Hawesside St and then to Crossens. 

Even since then there has always been a strong engineering culture in Southport. We have had an unusually high number of small bespoke independent garages often specialising in particular car brands - many hidden behind residential streets. Southport has had always a solid motoring skill base .”

However, research show that the age profile of skilled mechanics is going in the wrong direction with vehicle apprenticeships 30% below pre -Covid levels which itself in turn was a fraction of those trained in the 1970s. One figure suggests that there are only 50 odd apprenticeships in this field across Merseyside ! 

“People will be experiencing this when they try to book their car in for repairs and find that they can’t be fitted in ”, says Cllr.Pugh. “ Our skill base is being eroded. We need to train up a new generation of mechanics that can work on the new electric car technology, but we are nowhere near doing that. We will never build cars again in Southport or break the land record on the beach, but with the right skill base and training we can find our niche in the new industries. 

Glorying in our past is part of trying to inspire our future. Engineering skills are the invisible part of our heritage and arguably more important than candy floss and Wurlitzers ( which incidentally require skilled engineers too ) “.