George Eyston

Captain George Edward Thomas Eyston MC OBE (28 June 1897 – 11 June 1979) was a British racing and land speed record car driver in the 1920s and 1930s. He was also an engineer and inventor.

Motor racing
Eyston’s racing career began before World War One, when he was still a schoolboy, and raced motorcycles under an assumed name. After the war (in which he was awarded the Military Cross) he reverted to his own name, moved on to car racing and entered European road races, particularly in Bugattis, with success in races such as the 1921 and 1926 French Grand Prix

Later he became well known for racing supercharged MGs such as the Magic Midget and the K3 Magnette. His entries with the K3 included the 1933 Isle of Man and 1934 Northern Ireland Tourist Trophy events, and the 1934 Mille Miglia

He fitted a diesel engine from an AEC bus into a car built on a Chrysler chassis and used it to set high-speed endurance records at Brooklands, attaining 100.75 mph in 1933 and 106 mph in 1936.

In 1935, he was one of the first British racers to travel to the Bonneville salt flats of Utah, with his 24 & 48 hour record-setting car Speed of the Wind.

He is best known today for land speed records set in his car Thunderbolt.Between 1937 and 1939 he set three new land speed records, wresting them from Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird, but was twice bettered by John Cobb. The rivalry was friendly, and in later years Eyston, as competitions manager for Castrol, assisted with Cobb’s ill-fated attempt on the water speed record in Crusader.[14] He was also involved in the design of his Thunderbolt car at the Bean Cars factory in Tipton, Staffordshire (now West Midlands).