[BITList] 403.135 mph

Fri Dec 2 07:29:13 GMT 2011

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Cobb,  John Rhodes  (1899-1952), holder of land and water speed records, was born at Hackbridge, Surrey, on 2 December 1899, the youngest son in the family of three sons and two daughters of Rhodes Cobb, a fur broker, and his wife, Florence Goad. Educated at Eton College and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he joined his father's business. Before the Second World War he was commissioned by the Soviet government to sell the annual Russian pelt stock. In addition to his fur business he was a joint managing director of Anning, Chadwick, and Kiver Ltd, and vice-chairman of the Falkland Islands Company Ltd.

From an early age Cobb loved to race on the Brooklands track which was near his family's home at Esher, and he became known as a courageous and skilled driver. He competed in his first race at the Brooklands Whitsun meeting of 1925. His early successes took place in the mid-1920s, driving a big 10 litre Fiat which had been made before the First World War. Nevertheless, it was still capable of lap speeds in excess of 110 miles per hour. Subsequently he raced an eight cylinder Leyland-Thomas car and then moved into the front rank of racing motorists with a number of victories driving a 10.5 litre Delage. Driving the Delage he broke the outer circuit lap record at Brooklands in 1929 with an average of 132 m.p.h.

By the beginning of the 1930s Cobb maintained Brooklands lap speeds of 135 m.p.h. To the design of Reid Railton, Thompson and Taylor manufactured for him the legendary Napier-Railton car, which became the fastest machine ever to race on the Brooklands circuit. Cobb's premier Brooklands record was a lap speed of 143.44 m.p.h., achieved in October 1935, a record that remained unbeaten. In that year he drove the Napier-Railton for the first time on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. On this American visit he set new world land speed endurance records: for one hour at 152.7 m.p.h. and for twenty-four hours at 137.4 m.p.h. for the world's 24-hour record. Later in 1935 he won the 500 mile race at Brooklands, a feat which he repeated in 1937.

Cobb then set out to beat the world's land speed record, of 345 m.p.h., set at Bonneville by George Eyston in August 1938, and commissioned an entirely new car, built to an ingenious design by Railton. Once again the location was the Bonneville Salt Flats where, on 15 September 1938, Cobb set a new record of 350.2 m.p.h. On the following day, however, his rival Eyston exceeded this with a speed of 357.5. A year later, on 23 August 1939, Cobb returned and increased the world record to 369.74 m.p.h. The Second World War, during which Cobb served in the Royal Air Force and Air Transport Auxiliary, interrupted further attempts on the record. On 16 September 1947 Cobb made his final assault on the world land speed record at Bonneville, again driving the Railton. While his two-run average speed was 394.2 m.p.h., he reached 403.135 m.p.h. on one run, thus becoming the first person to exceed 400 m.p.h. His record, the last to be gained in a piston-engined vehicle, stood for sixteen years. In recognition of this feat he was awarded the 1947 Segrave trophy. Other awards were gold stars from the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1935 and 1937, though he received no official honours. Throughout his racing career he was encouraged by his mother, with whom he lived until his marriage, in 1947, to Elizabeth Mitchell-Smith (d. 1948); following the death of his first wife he married Vera Henderson in 1950. There were no children of either marriage.

In September 1952 Cobb took on a new challenge in an unusual setting. He set out to break the world's water speed record at Loch Ness, Inverness-shire, driving a motor boat powered by a turbo-jet engine. Called Crusader, the boat was 31 feet long, weighed 3 tons, and was blasted through the water by a de Havilland Ghost engine, similar to those fitted to the pioneering British Comet airliner. The hull and sponsons were made of birch plywood reinforced with aluminium alloy. The boat, with its torpedo shell and ski-like floats, looked akin to a science fiction creation. Cobb said, 'It's like driving a London omnibus without tyres on'  (Emery and Greenberg, 172). On a first run on Loch Ness he exceeded 200 m.p.h. On his second run, on 29 September 1952, when experts gauged his speed to be in excess of 240 m.p.h., Crusader took off, flipped over, and disintegrated. Cobb was killed instantly. His achievements, in terms of world or near world records on land and water, place him as one of the founding fathers of what are now classified as 'extreme' sports.

Scott A. G. M. Crawford 

Sources  S. C. H. Davis, The John Cobb story (1953) + DNB + The Times (30 Sept 1952), 6, 8, 12 + New York Times (30 Sept 1952), 1, 6 + G. N. Georgano, ed., The encyclopaedia of motor sport (1971) + C. Posthumus, Land speed record (1971) + Diagram group, Sports comparisons (1982), 77 + D. Emery and S. Greenberg, The world sports record atlas (1986), 137; 172 + R. Hoffer, 'The great race', Sports Illustrated, 87/13 (29 Sept 1997), 60-66 + CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1952)
Archives  FILM BFINA, 'Cobb does over 400 mph', British Movietone News, 16 Sept 1947 + BFINA, 'John Cobb killed during record attempt', 29 Sept 1952 + BFINA, 'Land speed record broken again', Gaumont British News, 19 Sept 1938 + BFINA, news footage
Likenesses  H. Tomlin, photograph, 1934, NPG [see illus.]
Wealth at death  £140,239 10s. 9d.: probate, 12 Dec 1952, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

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