THERE is something special about the Bluebird marque – whether it's the Bluebird cars in which Sir Malcolm Campbell broke the landspeed record in the 1920s, or the Bluebird speedboats that his son Donald Campbell used to set the water speed records in the 1950s.

But now Bluebird is back, with a third generation of the Campbell family behind the wheel.

When Bluebird Electric takes to the long flat expanses of Pendine Sands in South Wales this weekend, it will be driven by Don Wales – grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell, and nephew of Donald Campbell.

But as the sleek blue dart of a vehicles glides across the flats, its heart will be in Bristol – where much of the vehicle was created.

The city of Concorde, home of the Bloodhound 1,000mph car project, and birthplace of Brunel's groundbreaking ss Great Britain – Bristol has a long history of involvement in speed record attempts.

But the Bluebird's attempt at smashing the UK electric car landspeed record this weekend will owe much to the technical team at Bristol University who have devised its unique twin drive belt mechanism, which will work in combination with the kind of battery packs normally found on Typhoon aircraft to hopefully push the vehicle past the 137mph record.

"The car itself is the same chassis Bluebird that was used to set the record in the first place a decade ago," says Dr Tim Allen, who together with Professor Phil Mellor has led the team of five PhD industrial electronics students at the university.

"But although it may look the same from the outside, inside it's a very different creature."

The team completed a day of final preparations with practice runs at Filton Airfield on Tuesday, with Tim behind the wheel as test driver.

"It's an extraordinary driving experience," he says. "Everyone assumes it's going to be silent, because it's an electric car. But in fact, there is quite a noise from those twin, independent drive belts that propel us forwards."

Tim is keen to pay tribute to the Bristol team that developed the technology, working in conjunction with commercial firm Tirius, of which Tim is also a director.

"It's rewriting the technology of electric cars and taking it to a whole other level," he says.

"I've been involved with Bluebird Electric since its first incarnation in 2000 and 2001. But we felt the time was right to give it another go a decade on – the technology of electric vehicles has come a long way in that time.

"It seems so much more relevant to the real world, and the way that automotive technology is heading, than the traditional jet-powered landspeed records. The Bluebird brand and the Campbell family have always been ahead of the game, and they continue to be with this electric project."

Tim says the involvement of the Campbell clan makes people "sit up and take notice".

"Getting Don behind the wheel this weekend is brilliant for the project – having Sir Malcolm Campbell's son, Donald Campbell's nephew, behind the wheel of another Bluebird take the project to another level."

But Don now faces a challenge from his own teenage son Joe, who will also be driving the battery-powered vehicle for some of the runs this weekend.

The 19-year-old becomes the fourth generation of the Campbell family to pursue record-breaking.

The South Wales location has seen plenty of attempts on UK records in the past, including Sir Malcolm himself in 1924 when he set a then-fastest speed in a combustion engine of 146mph.

The Bluebird team is hoping to use this weekend's trials to test the technology behind the super-fast car and to build a new electric vehicle for an attempt on the world speed record in two years' time.

Ultimately Tim dreams of taking the car – or a future evolution of the car – to the USA to try for 500mph, which would pass the 307mph record set by the Buckeye Bullet 2.5 team last year.

This would also beat the wheel-driven record, which stands from 2001 at 458mph.

"We'd like to get it on the salt flats and try for 500mph eventually," Tim says. "Because that wouldn't just mean breaking the world electric speed record, it would actually mean breaking the world record for wheel-driven vehicles – that is, non jet-powered cars.

"But that would be some way in the future, and it would a newly built version of the car from scratch. But this weekend's record attempt, for us, is all about raising the profile of the project, so hopefully we can find further sponsors to help us to get to that next level."