The 1930 W.D. & H.O. Wills “Speed” cigarette card set is a 50-card tobacco issue produced by the Imperial Tobacco Company (via Wills cigarettes) in Great Britain, featuring colorful illustrations of high-speed vehicles and machines from the era of growing fascination with record-breaking technology. Measuring a compact 35mm x 65mm (1 3/8″ x 2 5/8″), each card displays a vivid front image with a simple title, while the reverse provides a short descriptive paragraph about the subject, along with the card number and set branding. The set broadly celebrates “speed” across multiple transport categories—airplanes, trains, ships and motorboats, and a smaller selection of automobiles and motorcycles—highlighting both record attempts and competitive events from the late 1920s.
For the auto racing cards specifically (roughly cards 23–30 in the set), the focus shifts to landmark land-speed record vehicles and motorsport events of 1929. Notable inclusions are Sir Malcolm Campbell’s famous “Blue Bird” and Henry Segrave’s “Golden Arrow” (iconic record-breakers), alongside race scenes such as the Grand Prix at Le Mans (1929), the Irish Grand Prix in Dublin (1929), and multiple entries from the Ulster T.T. Race (1929). One card spotlights the Hon. Mrs. Victor Bruce at Montlhéry (1929), capturing a pioneering female driver in action. These cards blend artistic renderings of sleek racing cars with backs that typically note the vehicle, driver or event details, and performance context, offering a snapshot of pre-Depression-era European and British motorsport excitement without extensive driver biographies. The racing subset is relatively modest within the larger set but stands out for its direct tie to contemporary competitive and record-breaking automobile achievements. The full set is scarcer than some later Wills issues, with the racing cards providing vivid, period-specific visuals ideal for writing about the era’s blend of glamour, engineering, and speed.
