TT Pioneers

By Robert Kelly

Motor racing in the Isle of Man 1904-1922

The automobile of today owes much to what happened on a small island between 1904 and 1922.
In an era when cars were regarded as smelly, noisy monstrosities of little value except as amusement for the rich, a technology in its infancy needed:
A CHALLENGE to encourage advancement:
PRESSURE to excite innovation; and
A PLACE where it could be tested - to destruction if necessary.
The challenge came in racing over the most testing course imaginable. The pressure: repeated changes in specification for the cars that could race. This forced engineers into pioneering experimentation. The place was the self-governing Isle of Man.
Men who bequeathed their names to motoring helped establish the foundations of the British motor industry here. They included Rolls, Bentley, Austin, Girling, Thornycroft, Dennis, Clement, Brabazon, Bianchi and Kenelm Lee Guinness (K.L.G.) of sparking plug fame.
They were adventurous, exciting and testing days; an era of risk-taking over rutted, muddy roads that exposed the host island to condemnation as 'The Isle of Manslaughter.'
Yet without them the modern car would never have developed as fast as it did.
This is the story of the early, pioneering days of the Car TT - the first race of its kind in the world.

173 A4 pages, hardback with dust jacket • many illustrations

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