The Land Speed Record recalls the titanic battle between Malcolm Campbell and Henry Segrave in the 1920s and 30s. Both Seagrave and Campbell came from a generation that had survived the First World War, and both found civilian life boring. They had both been fighter pilots, and for them the thrill of speed was everything. The vehicles they drove were beasts of engineering, taken to their absolute limits in desperate attempts to break the world record. As one man was successful, the gauntlet was thrown down and others risked - and often lost - their lives to become the fastest on earth. Malcom Campbell entered the record books in 1925 when, in the first of his legendary Bluebird cars, he managed to exceed 150mph (the first ever land-speed record was set by a Frenchman in 1898, who reached 39mph). In 1926, Henry Segrave, in his Sunbeam, beat Campbell's record. Then a Welshman, Parry Thomas, pushed the record up to 171mph at Pendine Sands, before tragically dying in his next attempt. In 1929, Segrave took the record up to 231mph, earning a knighthood and worldwide fame. But his luck was to run out when he was killed trying to beat the water speed record later that year. In 1935, with another streamlined Bluebird, Campbell became the first driver to break the 300mph barrier. Knighted, he broke the land speed record nine times in all. These men, and the machines they drove, became legends in the great era of speed.