Goldie Gardner’s MG at Bonneville (1952)

Ryan’s Challenger I post got me all fired up about Bonneville and record-setting streamliners of the golden age. I was starting to write about another car when I stumbled on this AMAZING silent 8mm footage of Goldie’s Bonneville runs of 1952, including shots of the MG EX-135 damage after it broke loose and hit the 4 mile marker sign on the salt. Check out his crew firing the car up right on Wendover Blvd. in afternoon traffic(!) and MG T Type’s doing spin outs on the salt. Great images of Wendover in the early 50s, too.

For those of you who don’t know who A.T. Goldie Gardner is, he was the great British racer that set over 100 international and local speed records throughout England, Europe and the USA between 1936 and 1950. BY 1951 he was no spring chicken (walking with a cane), but with his supercharged MG streamliner EX-135 car he obtained 6 international and 10 American records in the 1,100cc to 1,500cc engine class. This film is from 1952 when he returned to Bonneville with the EX and set 21 speed records in the same engine class as the previous year. Sadly, later that year he suffered a brain hemorrhage and was forced to retire from motor sports racing, passing away a few years later.

Go Goldie!!!