Brooklands Museum Talks

Recorded at his home on 5th August 2025, Karl talks with BMtv's Gareth Tarr about his latest three volume set of books "POWER UNLEASHED. TRAILBLAZERS WHO ENERGISED ENGINES WITH SUPERCHARGING AND TURBOCHARGING". Award-winning author Karl Ludvigsen takes the reader behind the scenes of the roller-coaster ride of supercharging, turbocharging and even more exotic power-boosting inventions throughout a...

Recorded at his home on 5th August 2025, Karl talks with BMtv's Gareth Tarr about his chequered career in the automotive industries and as an author spanning 60 years. In this part he talks about the Porsche, Mercedes and Ferrari book collections.

The author Crispian Besley is in conversation with Harry Sherrard. People lie, cheat, steal and even kill for a variety of reasons, one of which is to go motor racing, a particularly expensive and egotistical sport. Join author Crispian Besley as he shares salacious tales from the track as featured in his award-winning book. ‘Driven to Crime’, was the result of years of research, and it encompasse...

BMtv's Gareth Tarr talks with the author John Brooks about the creation of this volume. Officially licensed with the ACO, the organisers of the annual Le Mans 24 Hours race, this authoritative book is the eighth title in Evro’s acclaimed decade-by-decade coverage of the world’s greatest motor race. As described by Motor Sport magazine, this multi-volume set covering every race since 1923 is ‘one o...

We welcome to Brooklands John Mayhead, award-winning author of "Goldie – the amazing story of Alfred Goldie Gardner, the world's most successful speed record driver". Despite suffering severe injuries in the First World War and ongoing disabilities, Goldie Gardner became a successful Brooklands racer between the wars. But it was his record-breaking that came to define him, driving diminutive MG ba...

In this episode Tim Morris looks at the recent Motor Proud LGBTQ+ event at Brooklands including Stories Uncovered and the Eikon charity and in the second half a tribute to Brooklands stalwart and legend Julian Grimwade who lost his life last Saturday whilst competing at Donnington Park

Sir Ernest Shackleton became a national icon after venturing on four epic voyages of discovery to the Antarctic a century ago, including the famous HMS Endurance expedition. But after the Endurance was trapped by pack ice—and slowly succumbed to its crushing pressure—the expedition's fate, and that of its crew, looked bleak. Hundreds of miles from inhabited territory, and far from any shipping lan...

Lois Pryce is a British motorcyclist, adventurer, author, journalist and speaker. She quit her job with the BBC, passed her motorcycle test and rode 20,000 miles from Alaska to the tip of South America on a small dirt bike. Her next expedition saw her ride the length of Africa solo from London to Cape Town via the Sahara, Congo and Angola. Then came an epic 3000 mile solo motorcycle ride around Ir...

Brooklands Members Talks Host Harry Sherrard talks with Ian Flux about his life in motorsport. Ian Flux never got biggest breaks to move him up the international motor racing ladder, but he did become one of British motorsport’s most colourful and best-loved characters, and someone who has always lived life to the full. Fluxie has notched up nearly 50 years on track, from being a mechanic to motor...

John Tye, Concorde pilot and Brooklands volunteer talks with Alan Smith, Concorde test pilot about Alan's time working with Brian Trubshaw on 002 and Delta Golf during the 1970s.

Richard Noble came to Brooklands on the 23rd January to talk about his World Speed Records. In part one he recounts his land speed record challenges. What a story!

Former land speed record holder Richard Noble returned to Brooklands to tell us about his new project, an attempt on the water speed record. Inspired by the exploits of John Cobb and his designer Reid Railton, the Thrust team has set out to break the current WSR of 317.596mph, which was set by Australian Ken Warby back in 1978. That the record has stood for so long indicates both the danger and th...

When Eric Fernihough lost control of his motorcycle at over 170mph, he was the last British rider to have been the ‘world’s fastest’ on two wheels. An orphan, an adopted son, a public schoolboy, a Cambridge graduate, an engineer, a noted tuner, a European motorcycle champion, a multiple Brooklands race winner, ‘Ferni’ was a motorcycling household name in the nineteen thirties. On a new road in far...

Doug Nye is one of the world’s foremost motorsport journalists and authors. In 2023 he celebrated his 60th year as a racing journalist, having joined Motor Racing magazine in 1963. He went on to work for Motoring News and Motor Sport before going freelance. He remains a regular contributor to many racing and classic car publications in the UK and worldwide. He is the multiple award-winning author...

Max Chilton talks with Harry Sherrard about his fascinating and varied career in Motorsport. After starting his career in karts aged 10, Max Chilton progressed up the racing ladder through Formula 3 and GP2, reaching Formula One in 2013 with the Marussia team. He achieved the distinction of being the only driver to finish every race of his rookie season. A further season in Formula One followed, t...

From bamboo biplanes to supersonic airliners and the pioneer designers who created them A History of Aviation at Brooklands in 100 Objects. The author Nigel Spooner writes; The book is a history of aviation at Brooklands in 100 objects that are arranged into seven episodes, each of which covers a particular era of that history. Choosing what to include and what to leave out has been a difficult ta...

Although Derek never won in Formula 1, due to ill fortune and so often being in the wrong car at the wrong time, he did achieve the results he deserved in sports car racing, winning the Le Mans 24 Hours and the World Championship in 1992, plus finishing series runner-up with Jaguar in 1986 and 1991. In the twilight of his racing career, that world title was a fitting companion to the one he had ea...

Neil Laughton is a former Royal Marine Commando, helicopter pilot and Special Forces Officer who went on to become one of the world's greatest adventurers and a multiple Guinness World Record breaker. He has organised and led more than 50 expeditions on seven continents – by land, sea and air. His amazing adventures include piloting the world’s first road legal flying car on a 10,000 km journey fr...

Our speaker is author and journalist Rachel Harris-Gardiner. Her award winning book, Speed Queens, on which her talk is based, is a history of women in motorsport, from the first known motorised race for women in 1897 to the modern era, and covering both circuit racing and rallying. Some of the best-known female competitors such as Brooklands’ own Kay Petre and Gwenda Stewart, rally stars Rosemary...

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, international relations across the globe were dominated by the Cold War. From 1949 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries created the best-equipped armed forces that the world had ever seen, and which faced each other directly across the Iron Curtain in Europe. Our speaker is Michael Napier, an ex-RAF Tornado pi...

The exploits of the SAS in North Africa in the early years of the Second World War are well known; attacks behind enemy lines, destruction of hundreds of German aircraft on the ground and generally creating mayhem for the Afrika Korps. But little of this would have been possible without the Long Range Desert Group. Experts in desert navigation, the LRDG was formed to carry out deep penetration, co...

Vicki Butler Henderson in conversation with Harry Sherrard

Karun Chandhok in conversation with Harry Sherrard and two pieces of music celebrating Donald Campbell.

Brooklands celebrates 50 years since our Concorde delta Golf's first flight.

Vicki's grandfather raced a Frazer Nash at Brooklands and, with heritage like that, small wonder that she made her career in the motoring world. She started racing karts at the age of 12 and went on to compete in a multitude of cars and categories. Notable achievements include becoming the first woman to win a Maserati race in the history of the marque, when she competed in a support race at the B...