John Cobb

In a speech he gave at the opening of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, reported in last month’s edition of Lord Montagu’s Veteran & Vintage Magazine, Mr. Gilbert Hunt, C.B.E., President of the SMM & T, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Chrysler UK Ltd., in paying tribute to great motoring personalities of the past which the Museum honours, named one of them as Sir John Cobb. This was unfortunate, because it serves to open an old grievance, namely, that John Cobb was not knighted during his lifetime, although he broke the World’s Land Speed Record three times, had been to “the right schools” and lost his life while trying to regain the World’s Water Speed Record for this country. Why Cobb missed the honour which was bestowed on Sir Malcolm Campbell and Sir Henry Segrave for similar speed undertakings was a pertinent question at the time.— W. B.