(JCB via SWNS)
By Dean Murray
A hydrogen-powered JCB has set a new world land speed record.
The JCB Hydromax car became the fastest hydrogen-powered vehicle as it recorded an average speed of 406.320 mph on Tuesday, Aug. 11, across the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
Driven by Wing Commander Andy Green OBE, a 64-year-old retired Royal Air Force pilot, the vehicle had an average speed of 400.623 mph in its first run and 412.135 mph on its second run.
The achievement makes it the fastest a hydrogen internal combustion car has ever traveled.
The twin-engined, 32-foot car completed the two runs required under FIA rules – one in each direction within an hour – comfortably beating the previous FIA-officiated hydrogen internal combustion benchmark of 185.5 mph set by the BMW H2R in 2004.
The record was set using two of JCB's own production-based hydrogen digger engines, producing a combined 1,600 bhp and manufactured at the company's engine factory in Foston, Derbyshire.
They are the same engines powering JCB machines and equipment rolling off production lines in the UK as part of the company's £100 million ($134.2 million) hydrogen program.
(JCB via SWNS)
Andy Green set the official world land speed record of 763.035 mph in October 1997 in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, driving the jetâpowered car ThrustSSC. It is the fastest speed ever achieved by a wheeled vehicle on land and remains unbroken.
He is also the only person to break the sound barrier on land, and was the driver of JCB Dieselmax when it set the FIA world diesel land speed record of 350.092 mph at Bonneville in August 2006.
Andy Green said: "Bonneville is the spiritual home of the world land speed record, and JCB Hydromax has just written itself into that history. The car was terrific — stable, strong and fast. Setting a world land speed record with hydrogen power, twenty years after Dieselmax, is a huge privilege. This record is a huge achievement by a world class team and superb technology."
JCB Engineering Director Ryan Ballard, who is leading the project, said: "This record belongs to the engineering team which took a hydrogen digger engine and made it the fastest of its kind on earth. This has been an amazing challenge from the outset of the it being set in February last year. We came here fully prepared, and the car delivered."