Plans are ramping up for the major event at Brooklands marking the 100th Anniversary of the first Grand Prix race to be held in Britain. The latest in a list of illustrious historic racers to be announced is the Thomas ‘Flatiron’ Special. Designed and built at Brooklands by eminent Welsh engineer and pioneering racing driver John Godfrey Parry Thomas, the Thomas ‘Flatiron’ Special made its debut in 1926 and became a regular and successful competitor at the circuit. A century on, the Thomas Special will relive those glory days, running in public at Brooklands for the first time since before the Second World War.

Thomas at the wheel in 1926

Although best known for his Land Speed Record exploits in the mighty 27-litre Babs – a pursuit that tragically cost him his life on Pendine Sands in 1927 – Parry Thomas was also responsible for designing and building two far more advanced racing cars in his Brooklands workshop. With a low centre of gravity and bespoke 1.5-litre straight-eight engines, the pair of Thomas Specials were purpose-built for circuit racing. Both were expected to compete in Britain’s first Grand Prix staged at Brooklands in August 1926, although neither ultimately took part.

Photos Courtesy Brooklands Museum

Their potential was soon proven. Parry Thomas went on to win a 50-mile handicap race at Brooklands in October and later set new class speed and distance records, covering an impressive 112.77 miles in an hour to set a new world record.

With Brooklands’ closure as a racing circuit after the war and the arrival of a new generation of machinery, the Thomas Specials’ competitive era came to an end. One chassis was later scrapped in Canada, but the other survived and has now been painstakingly restored over the past decade by Geraint Owen, whose father, Owen Wyn Owen, famously rebuilt Parry Thomas’ Babs.

Thomas with Babs, Leyland- Thomas and Thomas ‘Flatiron’ Special

The reappearance of the Thomas Special will form part of an extraordinary display of 100 Grand Prix cars spanning the entire history of motor sport, celebrating the centenary of Britain’s very first Grand Prix at Brooklands on 8 August and as part of a special exhibition of cars housed within the venue’s historic Jackson Shed, newly refreshed for the occasion, that opens on June 27 and runs throughout the summer holidays.