The original Maybach-aircraft-engined Mercedes "Chitty Bang Bang" was one of the first "specials" that showed up on British race tracks such as Brooklands, in the early 1900s. It was by far not the only one- there was some pretty stiff competition from cars like the "Winnie Praps Praps" 1921 Lanchester built for a guy named Rabson, who had it built for tire testing for his ultimately ill-fated tire factory, and the later "Softly Catch Monkey" (also a Lanchester, thought by some to be a re-working of "Winnie Praps Praps", and argued by others to be a second car built by Fred Lanchester). These early cars were pretty soon eclipsed by more "specialized-professional" cars like JG Parry Thomas's Leyland 8- based LSR cars, and his later speed record car "Babs" (which was originally Chitty Bang Bang IV, BTW, with a giant Liberty V12 aero engine), and the later Napier- Railton Special built for John Cobb- which wound up with the all-time speed record at Brooklands, before it closed for good right about the time of WWII.
These pre-WWII British "specials" were a particular source of fascination for me as a youngster. There's a British book series called "Classic Cars in Profile" that covers many of these venerable old machines. One of the first books I was ever given, was a copy of the first volume, published in about 1966 or so- I literally pored over it until the pages nearly fell out. Highly recommended, if you can find copies of any of the four volumes of the compiled series. I managed to finally find copies of all four volumes, myself, a few years ago, and have been reliving some of the fascination I found way back then.
Regards,
Gordon.
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