While bulldozers usually come to one’s mind when the JCB brand is mentioned, in a new development, the British engineering giant has set a new world land speed record for a hydrogen-powered combustion vehicle. Performing the record-breaking feat was JCB’s in-house-developed Hydromax speedster, which achieved an average top speed of 653.90kph, with Andy Green behind the wheel. The record was set at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA.
- Hydromax outputs a combined 1622hp from two 4.8-litre hydrogen combustion engines
- The vehicle is 9.75 metres long and features a steel frame chassis
For Andy Green, this marks his third world record, with previous feats including the world land speed record for a diesel-powered car through a JCB Dieselmax 20 years ago in 2006. Before that was a world land speed record with the sound barrier-breaking Thrust SSC in 1997.
JCB hydrogen combustion world land speed record: Additional details
On its first run, the Hydromax recorded an average speed of 644.74kph, while it achieved 663.26kph on its second run. The average speed of the two runs was 653.90kph, helping it beat the record that was previously set by the BMW H2R in 2004, which achieved a speed of 298.53kph. At its average top speed, JCB says that the Hydromax is the fastest hydrogen-powered vehicle of any kind in history.
JCB Hydromax: What’s underneath it?
The 9.75-metre-long speedster uses two hydrogen-powered engines with a total capacity of 9.6 litres. The engines produce a combined power output of 1622hp and come with a single-stage motorsport turbocharger to deal with the high altitude of the Bonneville Salt Flats. Additionally, it utilises spark plugs designed for a Le Mans car.
The engines are laid on the sides of the car chassis, with one driving the front axle and the other the rear axle, while both are paired to a 6-speed sequential gearbox each. The company stated that the clutches used for the gearboxes were taken from a JCB digger, since motorsport-spec clutches weren’t designed to handle the loads of a speed-record car.
The Hydromax is built on a steel-frame chassis, while the driver sits in a carbon fibre monocoque sub-chassis. The windscreen is sculpted to mitigate drag, while the hydrogen tank sits behind the carbon fibre sub-chassis. Sculpted channels under the nose of the Hydromax are designed to channel salt from the car's underbody to reduce drag.
For the Hydromax, JCB commissioned an all-new tyre that grows at high speeds, due to which the front wheel arches had to be redesigned and enlarged. Instead of a cooling inlet to reduce engine temperature, it utilises two tanks of ice, with 250kg required for each run. It was claimed that on the full record run, the Hydromax would consume just over 2kg of hydrogen and produce 18 litres of water.