The Hon Jock Leith’s Bugatti Type 35B leads EG Hughes Frazer Nash, Brooklands 16 March 1935…
JA Hamptons shot is all about composition, just love that background Vickers factory, a well known aviation name of course.
By 1919 Vickers was already famous for the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean when Alcock and Brown flew their converted Vickers Vimy bomber from Newfoundland to a crash landing in an Irish bog.
The company was known as a shipbuilder, but early in the 20th century saw aviation as a profitable future opportunity. In 1908 the British Admiralty ordered the R.1 airship from them, a few years later Vickers built a French monoplane under license. In 1913 their first design, the F.B.I. flew.
Vickers Flying School opened at Brooklands on 20 January 1912, aircraft construction commenced on the site in 1915, Vickers having taken over the Itala Motor Works factory, by the Wars end they had built 4500 aircraft there…
Wellingon bombers being built at Vickers factory, Brooklands in December 1939 (Keystone-France)
Click on these links for interesting websites about Vickers and its history…
This one is more about Vickers on the Brooklands site; http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/v/vickers_shelter/index.shtml
And this one more about the aircraft themselves; http://www.vc10.net/History/vc10_origins.html
Credit…
JA Hampton, vc10.net, subbrit.org.uk, Keystone France, Underwood Archive
Tailpiece…
British GP, Brooklands Saturday 1 October 1927, Vickers factory in the background. The race ‘Royal Automobile Club Grand Prix’ was won by Robert Benoist’s Delage 155B, first 2 cars here both Bugatti’s (Underwood Archives)
primotipo... 