{"id":246,"date":"2018-10-27T15:40:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T15:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/?p=246"},"modified":"2018-10-27T15:41:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T15:41:49","slug":"book-review-reid-railton-man-of-speed-by-karl-ludvigsen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/10\/27\/book-review-reid-railton-man-of-speed-by-karl-ludvigsen\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review–Reid Railton: Man of Speed, by Karl Ludvigsen"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is another masterful work by Karl Ludvigsen, in the manner of Excellence Was Expected<\/em>, the definitive Porsche book,\u00a0\u00a0and Corvette \u2013 America\u2019s Star Spangled Sports Car<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While Porsche and Corvette have massive fan bases, Reid Railton has to be the least well known famous designer in the world.\u00a0 His many accomplishments barely fix into this substantial tome (848 PAGES). Retailing at around $220 dollars, that\u2019s a little over 3 cents per page.\u00a0 Heck of a deal.<\/p>\n

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Karl Ludvigsen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When England was having a hard time fielding a winning Le Mans car due to a lack of testing facilities on the home island, where the national speed limit was 20 M.P.H., Hugh Lock King carved out a piece of his family estate in 1907 to establish Brooklands.\u00a0 The\u00a0 2.75 mile motor racing circuit that was and is the world\u2019s first purpose built racetrack.<\/p>\n

Reid Railton, born in 1895 got his start as an engineer and designer with Leyland in 1916, and established his own manufactory at Brooklands in shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

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Reid Railton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scores of companies established their homes in the Brooklands infield in what would now be known as a \u201ctechnology hub.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Cross pollination between aircraft, automobiles and water craft was rampant.\u00a0 Racing results immediately improved and victories soon followed.<\/p>\n

The E.R.A. (English Racing Assn.) one liter and 1 \u00bd liter open-wheel cars benefited from his expertise, as did the Riley sedans and sports cars, and of course Leland. \u00a0By special arrangement with the U.S. manufacturer Hudson, Reid produced the Railton brand automobile, a rebodied and improved Hudson that sold well for a time in Europe.<\/p>\n

By 1938 the Railton Special (later the Railton Mobile Special) held several records on the Utah salt flats in the neighborhood of 400 miles per hour.\u00a0 Contributing to speed records on the water and in the air, everywhere you look Mr. Railton\u2019s name seems to pop up.<\/p>\n

When the War came, Railton applied his knowledge and intuition to the aircraft that defeated Hitler\u2019s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. \u00a0One could make the case that there wouldn\u2019t be much of an English racing heritage, or maybe even an England at all, without the ministrations of Reid Railton, the most famous designer that most people have never heard of.<\/p>\n

Reid Railton died in 1977 in Berkeley California.<\/p>\n

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Karl Ludvigsen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is another masterful work by Karl Ludvigsen, in the manner of Excellence Was Expected, the definitive Porsche book,\u00a0\u00a0and Corvette \u2013 America\u2019s Star Spangled Sports Car. While Porsche and Corvette have massive fan bases, Reid Railton has to be the least well known famous designer in the world.\u00a0 His many accomplishments barely fix into this … Continue reading “Book Review–Reid Railton: Man of Speed, by Karl Ludvigsen”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ludwigsen1.jpg?fit=1384%2C1680","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8gW0j-3Y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}