One of the two 22.5-litre Matabele V12 aero engines that powered Sir Henry Segrave’s legendary Sunbeam 1000hp Land Speed Record breaker will roar back to life for the first time in 90 years on 7 September, 2025.
The engine fire-up is the latest chapter in the ambitious Sunbeam 1000hp restoration project being carried out by engineers at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, UK. The goal is to return Segrave’s Sunbeam to the sands of Daytona Beach in 2027 for the 100th anniversary of its record-breaking run.
Segrave famously reported that the Wolverhampton Sunbeam factory building shook when both engines were started without silencers fitted when the car was being originally built.
‘With both engines running inside a closed building, it was going to be a bit different,’ admitted senior engineer Ian Stanfield. ‘There would have been vibrations which could have shaken the rafters and glass.’
On 7 September, however, the engine start-up will take place outside, in the grounds of the National Motor Museum.
To reach this point, National Motor Museum engineers spent months disassembling, documenting and restoring the powerplant’s individual components before reassembly could take place – all without the help of manuals or documentation.
Stanfield and his team will be hoping the moment goes as smoothly as it did in period; back then, the Sunbeam ran for just 300 yards before being packed into a crate and shipped to Daytona to bid for Land Speed Record glory.
‘They were clever people who designed and built the Sunbeam 1000hp back in 1918,’ Stanfield asserted. ‘When you look at the materials they used, the machining was phenomenal and the design was incredible.’
For details on attending the historic 7 September fire-up, head to the National Motor Museum website here.
