Brooklands Magazine

The title originated in 1924 as a magazine devoted entirely to Motor car and motor cycle racing, not just at Brooklands - initially edited by H. SCOTT HALL, M.I.A.E.. The magazine was the forerunner of the current Motorsport magazine and the title is still owned by them.

The first issue was in mid-October 1932 and it lasted for four issues until Feb 1933. Originally published by the aerodrome arm of Brooklands it was quickly adopted by the Brooklands Automobile Racing Club and thus morphed into the official magazine of the BARC, Brooklands Aero Club, Brooklands School of Flying, College of Aeronautical Flying and the Cinque Ports Flying Club. A prize of five guineas was offered to design a new cover showing the air and trackside and the magazine was originally to be called just "Brooklands". However, it became......

This magazine succeded Brooklands Aerodrome Magazine after just four issues so that the first issue of the newly titled Brooklands Track and Air began at Volume 1 Issue 5 in March 1933. It lasted for three volumes and was produced by Capt. O.V. Holmes, the magazine covered activities at the track both on the ground and in the air.

It gets slightly complicated here as the MG Car Club enter the story. They had their own magazine entitled the "MaGazine", which had been published since 1933 with Alan Hess as the editor. He was head-hunted by the British Racing Drivers Club in 1935 to edit their new magazine called "Speed". "Speed" was a successor of the Brooklands Aerodrome Magazine and Brooklands Track and Air.

The magazine had a wider remit than just Brooklands, although Brooklands and motor racing related articles were the mainstays. It also featured other aspects of speed including railways and aircraft.

Cecil Kimber then, in turn, head-hunted the editorial team of Speed back to MG shortly after and then changed the name to The Sports Car incorporating Brooklands Track and Air. The editor was FLM Harris and one of the team was Bill Boddy, who was closely associated with the saving of Brooklands in later years as a founder of the Brooklands Society. The Sports Car, as a title, ended in 1939 at the outbreak of war.

The title today is still owned by the MG Car Club and is incorporated into their current club magazine "Safety Fast" along with Brooklands Track and Air and the MG MaGazine.

The Brooklands Society was an independent organisation formed in the 1960s and dedicated to the preservation of pre-war racing at Brooklands. Their magazine, the Brooklands Society Gazette, featured many excellent articles on historic Brooklands motoring. The magazine was published from 1975 until 2013. The last editor, Chris Bass, went on to be the editor of the newly restyled Brooklands Bulletin.

The Association of Friends' first newsletter was published in September 1987, three months after the formation of the Museum Trust, although the first official meeting of the Friends would not be until Spring 1988 (despite a Christmas gathering of founder-members in December 1987). Initially, an A4 8 page silk finish b/w newsletter with photos it was reduced by issue 10 in January 1990 to a simple 4-page A5 photocopied leaflet. It remained in this format until May 1992. It was superseded by The Spirit in 1994.

The Brooklands Club was a support group for the Museum with access to the Members' Bar, snooker room and restaurant for its members. It published a regular A4 monochrome newsletter called "The Track Record" in the mid 90's.

The Brooklands "Friends" organisation published a regular newsletter from its inception in 1987 and developed it into a full colour A4 magazine sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. It was called the "Spirit" which was published twice a year from 1994 until 2003. "The Spirit" title is now incorporated into the current Brooklands Bulletin.

Following the closure of the Spirit magazine, which became unaffordable after the withdrawal of sponsorship, the Friends returned to a simple newsletter format called the Brooklands Bulletin, initially in monochrome A4, and then in a 16 page A5 green & cream monochrome booklet format published six times a year.

Following the amalgamation of the Brooklands Club and the Friends group towards the end of 2008 a new magazine was created which continued under the banner of the Brooklands Bulletin. By 2015 the magazine had grown to a 70 page magazine with many features on Brooklands related subjects as well as all the news and views from the Museum.

In 2026 the Brooklands Bulletin was relaunched as a perfect bound quarterly publication, the Brooklands Magazine, to coincide with the Centenary of the Britains 1^st Grand Prix. The first edition featured a line-up of three grand Prix Cars: the 1926 Delage 15-S-B and the 1979 Olympus Wolf WR7 from the Brooklands Museum display alongside a modern Aston Martin.