Earlier today the Classic Motor Cars team from Bridgnorth in Shropshire achieved their goal. The Aston Martin Bulldog which they had so painstakingly restored recorded a top speed of 205 miles per hour at Machrihanish in the Kintyre peninsula.
The project was cancelled before Aston Martin could make their own claim over forty years ago when the car was originally built in 1979. The idea then was to build the world’s first 200 mph roadgoing supercar, but rising costs ruled that out.
And so it was left to a bunch of enthusiasts, albeit a team of skilled engineers and technicians, to finally set the record straight.
Which they did, thanks to Le Mans winner Darren Turner who was entrusted with this one-off and a chance to go for the record.
But to put things into perspective, it’s one thing to drive a car at 200 miles per hour on an airfield runway, quite another to sit astride an engine slung between two wheels and do the same on public roads.
Taking nothing away from Darren with his run in the Bulldog, but just over a hundred miles due south on a wee island in the Irish Sea a number of genuine superheroes are doing just that.
Incredible to think that the Isle of Man (222 sq miles) is smaller than the Isle of Mull (337 sq miles) and yet it can host a closed road motor cycle race with a circuit lap length of some 37 and three quarter miles.
If Man is the capital of road racing, then Mull is the capital of closed road rallying, and whilst I may fancy my chances of driving car at 200 miles per hour, there’s no way I’d clamp myself on to a bike and do the same. These guys are not nutters, they are not human – they are superhuman. Gaun yersel Michael.
Thanks to Amy Shore for the Pics.
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