Overview
Pendine's speed museum opened in 1996 to explain the beach's land-speed record history and to display Babs, the car in which J. G. Parry-Thomas died in 1927. The first building closed in 2021, and a new Museum of Land Speed opened in 2023 with the restored car returned to its home village.
What this place is
The museum tells the story of record attempts on Pendine Sands and the people and machines drawn to its long, firm beach. Carmarthenshire County Council owns and runs the attraction in Pendine village.
People and events
J. G. Parry-Thomas was killed in Babs during a 1927 record attempt. The car was buried on the sands, recovered in 1969 after forty-two years, and restored over the next sixteen years by Owen Wyn Owen.
How it was used
From 1996 the original museum displayed the history of speed on the beach, with Babs shown there for part of each summer. The car spent time at Beaulieu while Pendine prepared a larger replacement attraction.
What survives
The 1990s building was demolished after closing in 2021. Its replacement, completed at a cost of about seven million pounds, opened on 31 March 2023 as the Museum of Land Speed, with Babs again forming the central surviving object.
Why it mattered
The museum keeps a dangerous and internationally known period of beach racing tied to the community where it happened. Recovering Babs turned a buried wreck into evidence of ambition, death, engineering and long public memory.
History checked 16 August 2026 against the named sources below.
Places near here
- Amgueddfa Cyflymder - Museum of Land Speedattractionunder 0.1 miles
- Children's playground — Sir Gaerfyrddin / Carmarthenshireattractionunder 0.1 miles
- Landing Place, Dolwen Pointbuildingunder 0.1 miles
- Peter Williams's Memorial English Presbyterian and Moravian Chapel, Pendinemonument0.1 miles
- Caves Pendine beachbeach0.2 miles
- Beach at Pendinebeach0.3 miles
- Pendinemonument0.4 miles
- Providenceevent0.4 miles
- Gilman Camp; Napps Head Campmonument0.5 miles
- Unnamed Wreckevent0.6 miles
- Anna Mariaevent0.6 miles
- Great House, Pendinemonument0.6 miles
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