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DONALD SIDEBOTTOM
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DECEMBER 2006 - Lakeland Motor Museum is to be relocated. Entrepreneur Donald Sidebottom has sold the Lakeland Motor Museum at Holker Hall in the
Lake District to Winander Leisure.
Winander proposes to relocate the museum’s collection of unusual vehicles and rare automobilia to new premises at an unused industrial site – also owned by Sidebottom – in Backbarrow.
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APRIL 2008 - THE
SUNDAY TIMES RICH LIST - DONALD
SIDEBOTTOM
K4 - Replica of Donald Campbell's Bluebird hydroplane. The original was built by Sir Malcolm Campbell, with a stipulation that Donald should not inherit the machine. To that end Sir Malcolm's will said that his boats should be auctioned to prevent Donald continuing with water speed records. Donald was then forced to bid for his father's steeds to be able to build on the achievements of his diamond dealing dad.
CONTACTS
Tel 01539 722464
015395 30400
Ulverston, LA12 8TA. Tel
01539 530400
Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House
South Lakeland District Council Ulverston Local Link
GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION - GETTING TO THE MUSEUM
The museum was established in 1978, based on the collection of motoring
enthusiast Donald Sidebottom. For many years the collection was housed next to the stately home of Holker Hall. In 2010 the museum moved from
Holker Hall to new premises at Backbarrow, on the shore of Coniston Water, occupying the old premises of the Reckitt's Blue Dye Works.
ELECTRIC
BLUEBIRD
We have seen and retain a copy of a transcript of a recording of Kruschandl and Wales discussing non-payment of his consultancy fees, and the subject of poor performance of the car BEL built, at a company board meeting. The poor performance of this car reflected badly on Kruschandl's (then) patented system - because Wales insisted on using a confusingly similar name (Bluebird) for an electric car without cartridge exchange. When, it was Kruschandl's designs that were the original electrically powered Bluebirds - and these cars featured instant cartridge refueling, which the car seen below most certainly did not. Of course the public would not know, because it was not in plain sight, which car had battery cartridge exchange and which did not.
Passing-Off was then a feature of the litigation that ensued, with an Injunction being granted in favour of the Applicant: Nelson Kruschandl, against the Respondents: Donald Wales and Bluebird Electric Limited.
To cap it all the car that was spawned from what looks like oppressive behavior on the part of this company's sole director, Don Wales, turned out to be a complete waste of sponsor's money - in that it was incapable of taking a world record - as per contracts signed with Bourne Leisure and possibly others. This is also captured on the recording of the boardroom meeting - a very interesting conversation that reveals quite a bit about Don Wales' thinking. A copy of the (Copyright) transcript is available on request for a small administration fee, provided that it is not published in any way shape or form. A copy of the recording is also available at a cost of £1,000 - also the subject of restricted rights. Publishing rights are available subject to negotiation.
BLUEBIRD ELECTRIC LTD - This was the company that built the fated electric Humberstone/Sheffield car that is incorrectly stated on the Lakeland website as being built by: "Don Wales Developments. It is unclear how such a glaring error could have come to be published and we will draw the attention of the proprietors to the historic inaccuracy that at the moment paints a different picture to that between 1996 - 1998. We understand that Mr Wales bought the car from the above company for around £6,000. A bit of a bargain you might think, considering that more than £300,000 of sponsor's money went into the making.
On September the 20th 1998, the Formula Ford conversion above had to be towed back to the other end of Pendine beach after it ran out of battery power on the outward run. The car was simply too heavy to be in the running to get anywhere near the then land speed record. It was a hasty conversion following a legal dispute where all of the money that had been raised for the BE2, was channeled by Don Wales to building this technological dinosaur. Kruschandl had raised significant sums from Sir Terence Conran and Bluebird Holiday Homes (Bourne Leisure), giving presentations that netted first £110,000 and then £45,000 - yet he claims that he never saw a penny of these money contributions that his cars and his promotions were instrumental in raising. The only sums that were paid across (for motors, controllers and batteries) were from London Electricity for the BE1 to be motorized and under-lit for appearances at the London Arena and Olympia.
Chris Humberstone converted the Formula Ford for Bluebird Electric Limited, under the directorship of Don Wales. Sheffield University provided the motors and Michelin the rather wide tyres that increased rolling resistance, with batteries coming from Hawker.
SAD SAND SAGA - Towed back using what looks like bed-sheets tied together. Obviously Don's engineers had their sums wrong, so much so that they never even thought to bring a tow rope. The team's website reported the car running out of power as it happened. Later, the official line was that there were technical difficulties. Some years later Joe Wales crashed the next electric car in the series that Don Wales drove, this one built by Martin Reece by another company to bear the Bluebird name. We think that that company is also now defunct. Pendine Sands appears no longer friendly to descendents of Sir Malcolm. Year of manufacture: 1996, Engine: Sheffield electric engine v2, Body: Carbon fibre, Built by: Bluebird Electric Limited, Location in museum Campbell 'speed kings' exhibition
LINKS & REFERENCE
info@lakelandmotormuseum.co.uk http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/BusinessRichList/article88179.ece https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lakeland-Motor-Museum/385214028200836 https://twitter.com/LakeMotorMuseum https://uk.glasdon.com/ http://www.visitcumbria.com/sl/lakeland-motor-museum/ http://www.lakelandmuseum.org.uk/ http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/detail.cfm?pagetype=detail&subject=news&codeID=18760
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This
website is Copyright © 2016 Bluebird Marine Systems Limited.
The names Bluebird™, Blueplanet BE3™,
Ecostar DC50™,
and the blue bird in flight
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