"Geebee" women's polo-shirt

The Gee Bee R-1 Super Sportster is one of the most famous racing aircraft of the 1930s. Designed by the Granville Brother, hence the name Gee Bee (Granville Brothers), it was built around a powerful Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engine producing more than 700 horsepower. Its short fuselage and exceptionally small wings gave it remarkable speed, but also made it notoriously demanding to fly.

With its distinctive shape, often described as “an engine with wings”, the Gee Bee became one of the defining symbols of the Golden Age of Air Racing.

On September 3, 1932, renowned American aviator Jimmy Doolittle piloted the Gee Bee R-1 to victory in the prestigious Thompson Trophy Race at the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio. The event, flown at low altitude around a closed course marked by pylons, was considered the ultimate test of speed, skill, and precision.

Doolittle won the race with an average speed of approximately 253 mph (407 km/h). During the same event, he also set a new world landplane speed record, exceeding 296 mph (476 km/h).

This remarkable achievement cemented the Gee Bee R-1’s place in aviation history and made it one of the most celebrated racing aircraft ever built.