UK engineering firm JCB has set a new world land speed record of 653.909km/h (406.320mph) with the hydrogen-powered JCB Hydromax at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats.
In May, JCB announced it was aiming to race a hydrogen-powered vehicle, 20 years after setting the diesel land speed record.
In 2006, the JCB Dieselmax, driven by RAF Wing Commander Andy Green OBE, broke the diesel engine land speed record with a speed of 560km/h (350mph), a record that still stands.
The firm decided to return to the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2026 but this time with the JCB Hydromax and, Green, the only person to break the sound barrier on land, came out of retirement to be behind the wheel.
While the testing programme during June in Cambridgeshire saw the vehicle top speeds of 335km/h (208mph), the team hoped that following a few refinements to the vehicle it could break the record.
On 11 August, the car recorded an average speed of 406.32mph across its two runs at the Bonneville SpeedWeek, the world’s leading...