British engineering giant JCB has set a new world land speed record of 406.320 mph with its hydrogen-powered JCB Hydromax, delivering another triumph for British industry on the same Utah salt flats where the firm made history two decades ago.
Running across the Bonneville Salt Flats on Tuesday, the Hydromax averaged 400.623 mph on its first pass and 412.135 mph on its second, giving a combined average of 406.320 mph.
Under FIA rules, both runs had to be completed in opposite directions within a single hour, and the car did so with ease, smashing the previous FIA-recognised hydrogen combustion record of 185.5 mph, set by the BMW H2R back in 2004. The result is now awaiting official ratification from the FIA, motorsport’s world governing body.
At the wheel was Wing Commander Andy Green OBE, the RAF pilot and record-breaking driver who remains the only person to have broken the sound barrier on land, having reached 763.035 mph in Thrust SSC. It was Green, too, who drove the 32-foot streamliner to both of its milestone runs, echoing his achievement in JCB Dieselmax, the diesel-powered car that set a 350.092 mph world record on this same stretch of salt in August 2006 — a record that stands to this day. With Hydromax, JCB has now beaten that mark using power drawn entirely from hydrogen, with no CO₂ emitted at the tailpipe.
The achievement also puts the Hydromax ahead of the fastest hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle ever built, which reached 303 mph, meaning JCB’s car is now the fastest hydrogen-powered vehicle of any kind in history.
What makes the record especially significant for British manufacturing is the engineering behind it. Rather than a bespoke racing engine, the Hydromax runs on two of JCB’s production hydrogen engines, generating a combined 1,600 bhp. These are the very same units now being fitted to JCB diggers on production lines today, built at the company’s engine factory in Foston, Derbyshire, as part of a £100 million investment in hydrogen technology.
JCB Chairman Lord Bamford, who first proposed the record attempt early last year and has spearheaded the firm’s hydrogen engine programme, said the achievement showed hydrogen power was ready for prime time, pointing out that the record-breaking engines are identical to those already at work in JCB’s machines.
Andy Green called Bonneville the “spiritual home” of the land speed record, and said setting a new mark there with hydrogen power, twenty years on from Dieselmax, was a huge privilege made possible by a world-class engineering team.
Ryan Ballard, JCB’s Engineering Director, who led the project from its inception in February last year, praised the team for turning a standard digger engine into the fastest of its kind on the planet.
The FIA’s president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, hailed the run as a landmark for motorsport, saying it demonstrated how innovation and sustainability could go hand in hand, and thanked JCB and its American partner club, the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States, for their role in the attempt.
It is the latest in a string of speed records for the Staffordshire-based firm. Just last week, the Hydromax broke the 368.347 mph barrier at Bonneville Speed Week, the Southern California Timing Association’s flagship event, setting a class record along the way. JCB has also previously built the world’s fastest tractor, the Fastrac, which reached 135.191 mph in 2019, and the fastest backhoe loader, the JCB GT, which hit 72.58 mph in 2014.
The record arrives at a pivotal moment for the company, coming just ahead of the opening of JCB’s new $500 million factory in San Antonio, Texas, which will create 1,500 manufacturing jobs building machines for the American market — a further sign of British engineering’s growing footprint on the world stage.
