Friday 11 December 2020
The first great automotive rivalry
Culture and Lifestyle Editor
Camille Jenatzy isn’t a household name today, a shame really, as the Belgian race car driver is etched into the automotive record books as the first person drive a car in excess of 100km/h, in the process setting a world land speed record. What’s more, he did it an electric car, one that he built himself.
Today, 100km/h is merely scratching the surface of most cars’ capabilities but in 1899, those types of speeds were unthinkable, certainly from that new-fangled invention, the automobile.
But, the advent of the motor car brought with it a new challenge – the pursuit of speed. And that chase for terminal velocity sparked the first great rivalry in automotive history.