Designed in an attempt to claim a prize offered by the Brooklands Automobile Racing Club, it was designed and built by Alliott Verdon Roe, who based it on a powered model with which he had won a Daily Mail prize of £75 at Alexandra Palace in April 1907.

This prize was substantially larger: the club committee was offering £2,500 for the first person to fly a circuit of their three-mile (4.8 km) race track by the end of the year.

[1] It was an unequal-span two-bay biplane without any vertical stabilising surface or rudder and was originally powered by a 9 hp (7 kW) JAP engine mounted in front of the wing and driving a two-bladed aluminium pusher propeller mounted behind the wings.

Roe continued work on his aircraft, borrowing a French Antoinette engine of 24 hp (18 kW) to use instead.

Roe repaired the machine and some further short flights were made before he was evicted from Brooklands on 17 July 1907.