Speaking to Motor Sport last week Smith admitted defeat: “I’ve been on this project for 27 years. A lot of the team have been involved for over a decade, and it’s all been done on a voluntary basis. [But] do we really need this hassle? It was just a gradual feeling that we’re never going to do anything with them [the museum], so the time came to walk away. We were bending over backwards to be accommodating, reasonable and compromise but it just wasn’t reciprocated.”
Smith said his project members had been pleading for months for him to give it up. Worn down by the legal troubles and the pressure from his team, he finally agreed to return the Bluebird K7 to the Ruskin Museum. Despite this the hydroplane may arrive in parts.
“[The engine] is owned by a third party and he will not allow that engine into the hands of people who aren’t skilled in its use. Once you take the engine out, you’re upsetting everything it’s connected to, basically everything. It will be a dead machine when that comes out. It’s such a crying shame to start taking the thing apart and it grieves us to be kicked out and be basically screwed over 20 years of work.”
Bluebird K7 ran in a series of tests on the Isle of Bute after restoration in 2018
Martin Barraud/Getty Images
A short statement released by the Ruskin Museum on Friday stated the “Bluebird K7 will return to Coniston in the coming weeks to be conserved and displayed in her forever home in the Bluebird Wing.” There was no set date for the return. Smith said that it will take time because they have to deal with the engine first.
“It doesn’t matter because, you know, we achieved what people said couldn’t be done. We rebuilt the machine from the ground up. We achieved the impossible, it can run and we proved the point. I think we’ve done everything that we set out to do.
“I say, everybody loses. And my vision was always to inspire a new generation of engineers, because I’m from the engineering community and it would also provide an incredibly entertaining exhibit. There is still a huge amount of potential untapped potential, it’s incredibly disappointing.”
Campbell and Bluebird K7 on Lake Coniston, setting a 248.62mph speed record in 1958
National Motor Museum/Getty Images
The return of K7 to its ‘spiritual home’ will be welcomed by many including Gina Campbell. Last year, she said: “Seventeen years have passed since we gifted K7, and the museum is still waiting for her return.
“Our wish was that Bluebird K7 would reside in the museum for all time and be run on special occasions, so that the British public could see this iconic piece of history, K7 is an important part of UK’s heritage and her future needs to be secured for future generations.”