catastr:ophe:..

'One

impact. Exact|y,,63 lrearg, and two days before we,took our BMW M5
onto Pendine Sands to have
i1s pho-

in a tragedy with a deeply local

n partic,Uiar:.ended

tation. the M5 wouldn't be too far

171.O2mph, but itwould also transport r::f q\1t peop [e:' i n:, ci,:ns id era b e uxu t'y,
I I

short of Thomas's April 1926 mark of

tog raph taken in.the waterV sunshine

of an icy, wind-blasted daV. Thomas

fli,.i:r'tuaryr1927' starti h g,at 146.1 6m p h, f i n:::::t::ni"Otfinl ut,r:174:88mph. Both those

set by Sir Malcolm Campbell, buI in between, in April 1926; the record was raised to 171.O2rnph by f lamboyanr Welshman Parry Thomas in 'his chain-driven
marks were
400hp special, Babs. The walls of the Beach Hotel bar are alrnost entirely lost under pho-

tographs oI those record runs and others. some of them relatively recent and a few of them ending in

luxuriously equipped saloon, with Ieather seats and electronic everything, would run to 155mph as a mat1er o{ course - and wou:td stop at that only because BMW, in deference to

of, the ,mighty Babs snapped and decapitated him as it spun away, ln ,the mid 1920s, those speeds were the ultimate frontier; today our

stretch of Welsh coast. While trying forlB0mph or more, the driving c,hain

had been killed on this beautiful

with the utrno$t : 1,$o'ise;'and do it all with huge reserves of safety and little more drama than sitting in your favourite a.mco.r-ner; stoprand ride

chair. Such is modern performance.

,, , ,who always lined venues like Pendine or Brooklands in the 1920s and 1930s,r-,:,..r,,tr the M5 is 'bqspoke'. as hand-bulllia$t..1 any car is nowadays, not in, ih traditional manner exactlv;: the same purpose -to-,giv.e3

better-heeled spectators

And like many of the cars of the

cerning buye;..
It:$ th6,.f
rrnod:-e.

a:n,i

the

German r government, have voluntar.ily restricted it to doing,.no more. Without that chip-based lirni-

over the crornmon

lion