New CN7 Book

[f1steveuk]

Watch out if your e mail address gets on Donald's mailing list, he's forwarded some very interesting e mails in the past!

CN7/60 was actually written off, and all that was used in the construction of CN7/62 was the two longtiduinal ali/honeycomb armatures, and three of the bulkheads, although even if you look at the pictures, post crash, the long runners were well tweaked at the tail. About 60% of the outer skins were re used and one of the gearboxe cases. The complex intake ducts were used but there was a new engine, and I think from the paperwork I got from Rubery Owen, CN7/62 was over 50% new, but I wouldn't venture if that constitutes a "new" car, or a rebuild. There would have to have been some mod's at the rear to accomodate the tail fin and it's mounting, and that makes me think, as the sheet and araldited honeycomb couldn't be cut down and new bits put on, so I wonder how much was actually re-used, and how much was "re-used" to keep the customs paperwork!!!

[f1steveuk]

I would suggest Google-ing "Bentley Old Number 1", rebuilt around a bulkhead and a few bolts, but considered, "original"!!!!

[f1steveuk]

Your very right Mike. There are quite a few of the Ivan Dutton T35 Bugatti's now accepted as "original", and I can only think it's because someone wiped them with the same cloth as they polished a real one with earlier..............

[quicksilver-wsr]

Having not been on any of the forums until now, I've not had an opportunity to correct an error that has become so ingrained in use that it has now become "fact" - when it isn't.

I notice that the designation CN8 has been used in this thread in reference to Donald's rocket-car concept. I don't blame anyone for using that designation, because it has been misused by so many people for so long that it will be impossible to find out when the first misuse took place and "Whodunnit?", but I feel I have a duty to put the record back on track again.

The rocket-car concept conceived by Norris Brothers at Donald behest and promoted by Donald's publicists, Plimmers, in the mid-1960s was never ... ever .... designated CN8.

It was designated Bluebird Mach 1.1.

Yes, seven years later I tried to get this project restarted with help from Leo Villa and Ken Norris - me too young and enthusiastic, at first, to realise that I'd bitten off more than I could chew - and the designation chosen then was CMN8, but "CN8" doesn't automatically follow from that. Not at all.

You will not see anywhere in any of the Norris Brothers, DMC or Plimmers literature the designation CN8. Nor will you see it anywhere in the literature of people - and I was one of them - that tried to bring this beautiful and futuristic car concept back from the dead.

"CN8" is a moniker that has sprung out of someone's imagination in much more recent times, and I'm probably to blame - indirectly - by coming up with the number 8 in the first place (1974). It just goes to show how easy it is for history to become distorted with passing years.

Hope this puts the record straight.

[f1steveuk]

With all due respect Nigel, I have seen a Norris Bros document with "CN8" on it, a slightly more rounded and stylised version, with a rounded bubble cockpit rather than the one Ken refered to as the "sharpened pencil" front end that was a feature of the John Shinton model, but I'm 100% certain CN8 appeared on the drawing I am thinking of.

[quicksilver-wsr]

I don't doubt your word, Steve. If you say you're 100% certain you've seen it, you've seen it.

The answer to the riddle may lie in the date of the drawing, in that my use of the number 8 when we came up with the designation CMN8 was purely because I thought - at that time - that if we were building the car after CN7, it logically had to be called "CN8". Of course, that was stupid of me, because the earlier designation, CN7, had nothing to do with that car (the Proteus-engined LSR-breaker) being the seventh Bluebird. It was a reference to the fact that the final design chosen for construction was the seventh in a series of potential concepts for that car.

Going back, then, to the car that Norris Brothers and Donald announced, through the Plimmers publicity agency, in 1965 ... the car was definitely not referred to in their literature as CN8. I say that because Ken himself gave me that literature back in 1974 and I still have it. But, of course we have it from Leo Villa's book, The Record Breakers, that this car concept was called Bluebird Mach 1.1.

You are right to say that the original design of Bluebird Mach 1.1 had a more rounded nose. The nose got more pointy much later, when a fellow named Greville Dawson, whom I'm still in touch with, got a windtunnel project under way and attempted to resurrect the project - in the period just before I did, in fact. (I have that windtunnel model here in my office at home, not four feet from me as I write this.)

It would be great to see your document, Steve. I don't doubt your word. But I do doubt the use of the number 8 by the Norris Brothers, as it makes no sense. That car - the supersonic concept - wasn't the eighth of anything.

But Ken may have picked up on my CMN8 designation at some point and abbreviated it, on his own personal paperwork not for public release, to "CN8".

As I say, the figure 8 means nothing in relation to that car (the supersonic car). The eighth what? It's an irrelevant figure.

At some point I'll invite Greville Dawson to write a few words about his involvement with Ken and the Mach 1.1 concept (1973). It has never been brought out in the public domain and it really should be, for posterity's sake.

All the best.

[f1steveuk]

The actual document/documents is/are now in Beaulieu, and as anyone who has tried to see these, it isn't easy! Confessing I was much nearer eighteen then than I am now, it was two sheets of A4, folded to make a sort of eight page book. A profile picture of the proposed design, which was very rounded in comparision to what appeared on Donald's drive, which kicked up at the tail to a single nozzle. The rear wheels mounted in HUGE rounded aerodynamic spats, and a central tailfin. Inside was a similar drawing/sketch showing a basic spaceframe. In the centre one of Ken's sketches showing the car, on a run, with Ken's "whoosh" lines and the words "Bluebird, Campbell Norris 8". I got the impression, simply because it followed Campbell Norris 7!!! I'm sure you recall the hundreds of memos in Ken's writing, and one of these said, "It has to be Bluebird, but it doesn't tell me what it's for!!! Maybe for the press Bluebird Mach One", then underneath someone had written "Mach 1.1, we want to exceed it". It may be possible that CN8 was in house, and resurected after a while, and if I can get the archive log to load in Vista, I am sure there was CN1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,and 10 (the last being the amphibious CN7 a like, that spawned the X10 Quicksilver design??).

When I first met Ken he was still in Norris House, and the drawing archive was at the bottom of the lift shaft (some say there are still tubes down there!!), and the drawing log was already becoming a mess, after the move to Bournemouth, the log was a waste of time!!

The "CN8" I saw was a tricycle, which then developed into two closely mounted twin front wheels. The drawings of Mach 1.1, some with stress calc's and measurements, so much later, had the twin, faired in front wheels, with the hollow in between and very little wheel showing, the very square lined rear wheel fairings. The three piece flat glass screens, and the twin rocket motors, piggy backed at the rear, but no central tail fin.

My guess is, that both names existed, much as Blue Birds and Bluebirds, but rather than Blue Bird (Sir Malcolm' vehicles) and Bluebird (for Donald's) it really depended on who was quoting it! Regardless, I'd love to know what speed the design would have achieved, especially in light of Breedlove's Sonic Arrow looking SO similar, although I wouldn't have wanted to sit right up front!!!!

[jonwrightk7]

david tremayne has a new book coming out i see on amazon. says 2011. long wait. if "the man behind the mask" is anything to go by, it should be a cracker

[malcolm uk]

CN7 - Chaters Motoring Booksellers now list this book in their Summer/Autumn catalogue that arrived mid week. Amazon have had an interview video with author Donald Stevens on release. The Author is offering a CD with copies purchased directly from him. I would say Mike it is available now!

David Tremayne - was under pressure to write three titles - so the Water Speed Record appears to have gone to 2011. [The first book this year is for August publication about Jochen Rindt]. David has been invited to a forthcoming SRC meeting to talk about the subject and discuss his book. [Shame he will now 'miss' the January Coniston gathering.}

[Renegadenemo]

Have mailed him to ask what's the status of his book - stand by...