Today, those people who know the story of Goldie Gardner tend to link him to MG. With that brand, he found certainly found glory at Brooklands and on the road racing tracks of Ireland, then he went on to break over 150 local, national and international records between 1931 and 1952, the vast majority of which in cars bearing the MG crest. But in writing his biography, Goldie, the amazing story of Alfred Goldie Gardner, the world's most successful speed-record driver, I discovered that one particular record required not just a competitor's engine, but a renaming of the car itself.
Most of Gardner's records were achieved in EX135, an MG K3 chassis that Goldie Gardner purchased in 1937 to replace his fast, but limited single-seat K3007. With the significant benefit of a sponsorship cheque from Viscount Nuffield for £1000 plus the MG works team in support, Goldie set to work building a worldbeating record car. Reid Railton was commissioned to create the flowing aluminium bodywork built on license from German patent design by the master. Railton's design combined a flat floor (creating a ground effect decades before Colin Chapman tried the same) with a removable body built around a lightweight spaceframe. This meant that all elements of the car could be worked on with ease and, most importantly, that different engines could be fitted.
