JCB Dieselmax is the name of the car that broke the worldwide speed record for diesel powered vehicles, this event happened yesterday on Bonneville Salt Flats in the US, it is the “world's largest deadflat space and is made up of a powdery salt“, the self-nominated best place in the world with great conditions for this kind of activity.

The new record is set at an average speed of 350,092mph (563,14kph), the old record was dated about 30 years ago, more exactly in 1973 and the numbers showed 236mph (379 kph) – it’s a difference of 114mph when comparing the new and old record.

The car - JCB Dieselmax – is a beast, besides breaking the speed record on diesel powered vehicles, it can also enter the Guinness records on another category because it is the first card designed exclusively by computer. It measures 9m long x 1m wide x 1.3m high, comes with two engines that feature turbo and has a 6-speed gearbox. The only way to slow it down is by using 3 different methods at the same time which are: normal brakes, engine breaks and parachutes. A funny fact is that during the tests, the original GPS software could only count up to 223mph, so the JCB team had to change that in order to measure the exact speed themselves.

Andy Green (Wing Commander Andy Green) is the JCB Dieselmax driver who is used to speed records, he was the one setting the first supersonic speed record in 1997, at that time he reached 763.035mph.

Dr Tim Leverton, Project Director at the JCB Dieselmax team, comments:

350mph is a fantastic speed for a diesel-powered car. To have built the world's fastest diesel in such a short timescale is a wonderful achievement for the JCB DIESELMAX team. What is even more impressive is to set three records – 317.021mph, 328.767mph (526.027 kph) and 350.092mph (563.418kph) in only six days.

Via peterboroughtoday and JCB Dieselmax