Another speed king of the future? Young Donald Campbell and his father, Sir Malcolm Campbell with Donald's electric motor car. Sir Malcolm Campbell was holder of 13 world speed records in the 1920s and 30s in the famous Bluebird cars and boats, and his second wife. This background would shape Donald Campbell's entire character, and indeed his life. He broke eight absolute world speed records himself on water and on land in the 1950s and 1960s. He remains the only person to set both world land and water speed records in the same year (1964). He was killed attempting a new water speed record on Coniston Water on 4 January 1957.