Pendine to star in promotion
Pendine Sands, the home of World land speed records, is to feature in the promotion of the Vauxhall Insignia VXR in September.
They say in the 1920’s the VXR would have been heralded the fastest car in the world.
That was when on the fine miles-long Pendine Sands Malcolm Campbell and JG Parry-Thomas heroically shifted the World Land Speed Record from 146.1mph to 174.22mph.
More than 80 years Vauxhall return to Pendine Sands – now a Carmarthenshire County Council managed beach and part Ministry of Defence firing rangein what they describe as an eclectic mix – with a car that would have taken the record from Malcolm Campbell in 1924.
Vauxhall drive the VXR along the very stretch where the records were set (with all necessary permissions and clearances), albeit a little more slowly, and reflect on the superhuman efforts that saw Campbell and Bluebird into the record books but Parry-Thomas to an untimely end.
The Vauxhall film crew visited the Pendine Museum of Speed and see Parry-Thomas’s beautifully-restored ‘Babs’, a car dug out of the dunes from its final resting place and restored. They learn how Don Wales, Campbell’s grandson, returned to the beach in 2002 to set an Electric Car World Land Speed record (in Bluebird Electric 2) of 137mph that stands today. Vauxhall suggest they may return in an Ampera VXR in due course.
The Vauxhall team are doing their bit to support Carmarthenshire Council ’s tourism too with the team visiting the former home – and Boat House writing room – of poet and author Dylan Thomas, at Laugharne and staying at the conversely contemporary Hurst House Hotel, they describe as modern Britain exemplified.
County executive board member for leisure services Cllr Clive Scourfield said: “Both Cefn Sidan, Pembrey, and its sister beach Pendine over the years have become iconic destinations for promoters and advertisers whose footage travels the globe.
“The long wide flat sands on both beaches, history of records and wrecking with the backcloth of Worm’s Head make it an advertiser and designers dream location.
“The county are presently compiling a list of the many advertising and promotional events that have taken p art on both sands in the last decade. It makes astonishing reading.”
They say in the 1920’s the VXR would have been heralded the fastest car in the world.
That was when on the fine miles-long Pendine Sands Malcolm Campbell and JG Parry-Thomas heroically shifted the World Land Speed Record from 146.1mph to 174.22mph.
More than 80 years Vauxhall return to Pendine Sands – now a Carmarthenshire County Council managed beach and part Ministry of Defence firing rangein what they describe as an eclectic mix – with a car that would have taken the record from Malcolm Campbell in 1924.
Vauxhall drive the VXR along the very stretch where the records were set (with all necessary permissions and clearances), albeit a little more slowly, and reflect on the superhuman efforts that saw Campbell and Bluebird into the record books but Parry-Thomas to an untimely end.
The Vauxhall film crew visited the Pendine Museum of Speed and see Parry-Thomas’s beautifully-restored ‘Babs’, a car dug out of the dunes from its final resting place and restored. They learn how Don Wales, Campbell’s grandson, returned to the beach in 2002 to set an Electric Car World Land Speed record (in Bluebird Electric 2) of 137mph that stands today. Vauxhall suggest they may return in an Ampera VXR in due course.
The Vauxhall team are doing their bit to support Carmarthenshire Council ’s tourism too with the team visiting the former home – and Boat House writing room – of poet and author Dylan Thomas, at Laugharne and staying at the conversely contemporary Hurst House Hotel, they describe as modern Britain exemplified.
County executive board member for leisure services Cllr Clive Scourfield said: “Both Cefn Sidan, Pembrey, and its sister beach Pendine over the years have become iconic destinations for promoters and advertisers whose footage travels the globe.
“The long wide flat sands on both beaches, history of records and wrecking with the backcloth of Worm’s Head make it an advertiser and designers dream location.
“The county are presently compiling a list of the many advertising and promotional events that have taken p art on both sands in the last decade. It makes astonishing reading.”
Comments