So little that can be said about this mystery car. The only known photograph is this, found in a 'For Sale' advertisement from car dealers, Metcalfe and Mundy, in the December 1955 issue of Motor Sport Magazine. Whilst it describes the car as Volanti', though I am assured that the correct spelling is 'Volante'. All I can really tell you is that it is a DB2/4. right hand drive, chassis 810, built for Lord O'Neil, body almost certainly of glass-fibre and that the Northern Irish registration number isn't on the DVLA computer. The design is obviously very closely based on that of the rare, 1952 Touring designed spyder, the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante (Italian for Flying Saucer)
MV Agusta
Disco Volante was the nickname given by the people and the press to the two sport models of the 175 MV lauched in 1954 in two versions : the 175 CS Sport and the 175 CSS.(Super Sport). The nickname was given due to the tank shape looking as a "Flying saucer" which was common to the two models.
Alfa Romeo
The very refined two-seat sporty 1900 Alfa Romeo Disco Volante featured one of the most interesting bodyworks designed by Touring with a convex lenticular profile. Only two copies of the prototype were produced. Its top speed was rated at around 140 mph.
James Bond
The Disco Volante is a fictional ship in the James Bond novel Thunderball (1961) and its 1965 film adaptation of the same name. It was a hydrofoil craft owned by Emilio Largo, an agent of SPECTRE. It was purchased with SPECTRE funds for £200,000. The craft plays a pivotal role in the seizure and transportation of two nuclear warheads. It is a high-tech ship that possesses a number of smaller underwater submarine craft.
I've always dream to have boat like this from the 20's or the 30's. Very vertical stern, iron and wood its the kind of magic boat to live on, make a full trip around the world and move the fuck on ... Actually those boats are all in the S.F area so if you're down there in NorthCal take time to go, have a look and dream.
Motoryacht U.S.S. Potomac
The 165-foot Motoryacht U.S.S. Potomac was built by Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co., Wisconsin in 1934. Owned by The Potomac Association. Based at Jack London Square, Oakland. Originally built for the U.S. Coast Guard. She served as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential yacht and "floating White House" from 1936 until his death in 1945. She has been beautifully restored and now sails San Francisco Bay regularly.
Motoryacht La Jota
The 65-foot Motoryacht La Jota was built by San Pedro Boat Works in 1921. Owned by Stephen Olsson. Based at Sausalito Yacht Harbor. La Jota is Spanish for "the Joker"; she was reportedly built for one of Jack Benny's writers.
Motoryacht Starfjord
The 138-foot Motoryacht Starfjord was built in 1936. Owned by Miles Davis (not the musician). Based at Bethel Island. The Starfjord is rumored to have been built for Al Capone and was later owned by the Walgreen family.
Donald Malcolm Campbell, CBE (23 March 1921 – 4 January 1967) was a British car and motorboat racer who broke eight world speed records in the 1950s and 60s. He remains the only person to set both land and water speed records in the same year (1964). Donald Campbell was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, the son of Sir Malcolm Campbell, holder of 13 world speed records in the 1920s and 30s in the famous Bluebird cars and boats, and his second wife, Dorothy Evelyn née Whittall. He attended Uppingham School. At the outbreak of World War II he volunteered for the Royal Air Force, but was unable to serve because of a childhood illness. He joined Briggs Motor Bodies Ltd in West Thurrock, where he became a maintenance engineer. Following his father's death in 1948 and aided by Malcolm's chief engineer, Leo Villa, the younger Campbell strove to set speed records on land and water. He married three times: to Daphne Harvey in 1945, producing daughter Georgina (Gina) Campbell in 1946; to Dorothy McKegg in 1952; and to Tonia Bern in 1958, which lasted until his death in 1967.
Water speed records Campbell began his speed record attempts using his father's old boat Bluebird K4, but after a structural failure at 170 mph (270 km/h) on Coniston Water, Lancashire in 1951 he developed a new boat. Designed by Ken and Lew Norris, the Bluebird K7 was an all-metal jet-propelled 3-point hydroplane with a Metropolitan-Vickers Beryl jet engine producing 3500 lbf (16 kN) of thrust.
Campbell set seven world water speed records in K7 between 1955 and 1964. The first was at Ullswater on 23 July 1955, where he set a record of 202.15 mph (324 km/h). The series of speed increases—216 mph (348 km/h) later in 1955, 225 mph (362 km/h) in 1956, 239 mph (385 km/h) in 1957, 248 mph (399 km/h) in 1958, 260 mph (420 km/h) in 1959—peaked on 31 December 1964 at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia when he reached 276.33 mph (444.71 km/h); he remains the world's most prolific breaker of water speed records.
Land speed record attempt
Bluebird CN7 in July 1964 at Lake EyreIn 1956, Campbell began planning a car to break the land speed record, which then stood at 394 mph (630 km/h). The Norris brothers designed Bluebird-Proteus CN7 with 500 mph (800 km/h) in mind. The CN7 was completed by the spring of 1960, and was powered by a Bristol-Siddeley Proteus free-turbine engine of 4,450 shp (3,320 kW). Following low-speed tests conducted at the Goodwood circuit in Sussex, England, the CN7 was taken to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, scene of his father's last LSR triumph in 1935. The attempt was unsuccessful and CN7 was written off following a high-speed crash in September at Bonneville. Campbell was not seriously hurt, suffering a fracture to his lower skull, and was by 1961 on the road to recovery and planning the rebuild of CN7.
The rebuilt car was completed, with minor modifications, in 1962 and, by the end of the year, was shipped to Australia for a new attempt at Lake Eyre in 1963. The Lake Eyre location was chosen as it offered 450 square miles (1,170 km2) of dried salt lake, where rain had not fallen in the previous 20 years, and the surface of the 20-mile (32 km) track was as hard as concrete. As Campbell arrived in late March, with a view to a May attempt, the first light rain fell. Campbell and Bluebird were running by early May but once again more rain fell, and low-speed test runs could not progress into the higher speed ranges. By late May, the rain became torrential, and the lake was flooded. Campbell had to move the CN7 off the lake in the middle of the night to save the car from being submerged by the rising flood waters. The 1963 attempt was over. Campbell and his team returned to Lake Eyre in 1964, but the surface never returned to the promise it had held in 1962 and Campbell had to battle with CN7 to reach record speeds (over 400 mph (640 km/h)). After more light rain in June, the lake finally began to dry enough for an attempt to be made. On 17 July 1964, Campbell set a record of 403.10 mph (648.73 km/h) for a four-wheeled vehicle (Class A). Campbell was disappointed with the record as the vehicle had been designed for much higher speeds. CN7 covered the final third of the measured mile at an average of 429 mph (690 km/h), peaking as it left the measured distance at over 440 mph (710 km/h).
In 1969, after Cambell's fatal accident, his widow, Tonia Bern-Campbell negotiated a deal with Lynn Garrison, President of Craig Breedlove and Associates, that would see Craig Breedlove run Bluebird on Bonnyville's Salt Flats. This concept was cancelled when the parallel Spirit of America supersonic car project failed to find support.
Dual record holder Campbell now reverted to Bluebird K7 for a further attempt on the water speed record. After more delays, he finally achieved his seventh WSR at Lake Dumbleyung near Perth, Western Australia, on the final day of 1964, at a speed of 276.33 mph (444.71 km/h).
He had become the first, and so far only, person to set both land and water speed records in the same year. Campbell's land record was short-lived, because rule changes meant that Craig Breedlove's Spirit of America , a pure jet car, would begin setting records later in 1964 and 1965. Campbell's 429 mph (690 km/h) speed on his final Lake Eyre run, however remained the highest speed achieved by a wheel-driven car until 2001; Bluebird CN7 is now on display at the National Motor Museum in Hampshire, England, her potential only part realised.
Final record attempt In 1966, Campbell decided to once more try for a water speed record. This time the target was 300 mph (480 km/h). Bluebird K7 was fitted with a lighter and more powerful Bristol Orpheus engine, taken from a Folland Gnat jet aircraft, which developed 4,500 pounds-force (20,000 N) of thrust. The modified boat was taken back to Coniston in the first week of November 1966. The trials did not go well. The weather was appalling, and K7 suffered an engine failure when her air intakes collapsed and debris was drawn into the engine. Eventually, by the end of November, some high-speed runs were made, but well below Campbell's existing record. Problems with Bluebird's fuel system meant that the engine could not reach full rpm, and so would not develop maximum power. Eventually, by the end of December, the fuel starvation problem was fixed, and Campbell awaited better weather to mount an attempt.
Death On 4 January 1967, Campbell was killed when Bluebird K7 flipped and disintegrated at a speed in excess of 300 mph (480 km/h )
As the summer is almost here, its time to think seriously about having fun on the water, surfing is a god way but here is another one ...
Baby Bootlegger is perhaps the most beautiful wooden boat ever built. She won the 1924 and 1925 Gold Cup race. The race began as a free-for-all in the early part of the century. However, when the racers developed into overpowered creatures with three and four V-12 engines, the race was changed in the twenties into a class with a requirement for four seats, one engine and a limit on engine size. It was to be a 'gentleman's run-about', and Baby Bootlegger was the pinnacle boat of this group. Today, the Gold Cup race is an unlimited class with Miss Budweiser and other powerful boats.
Baby Bootlegger is a thirty-foot pontoon of varnished mahogany. Except for the open cockpit way in the back, it is an unbroken stretch of mahogany.
Baby Bootlegger had three technological innovations. First, the classic boat design has a 'hard sheer', which means that there's a sharp angle between the deck and the sides of the hull where they meet. Baby Bootlegger was the first boat to have a 'rolled sheer', with the deck smoothly rolling over to meet the hull.
Second, until Baby Bootlegger , the back of the boat was either a straight or wide-vee transome. At the waterline, Baby Bootlegger has a standard transome, but above the water there is a long overhang. This is essentially a large fairing that takes the hull shape back to a sharp point. This combined with the rolled sheer makes the boat look like an upside-down canoe. There are good aerodynamic reasons for this design, but it was seen by many as a matter of styling, and soon after a number of cars were built with varnished mahogany and tulipwood aft-decks: the Stutz Blackhawk, various Hispano-Suizas and Isotta-Fraschinis, Duesenbergs and the Auburn Boattail Speedster.
Third, the rudder was a 4° wedge, like the X-15's controls, instead of the usual airfoil shape, which would wallow in a neutral band of marginal control before it took effect. Not only was this the first application of a wedge rudder on a boat, but also it wasn't until 20 years later that it was tried again.
Baby Bootlegger will do 70 mph flat-out. In addition to being a stunningly beautiful boat, she is considered by many the best handling in any boat.
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