JCB’s hydrogen powered Hydromax smashes the world land speed record for hydrogen combustion cars

British engineering firm JCB has set a new world land speed record for hydrogen combustion vehicles, with its JCB Hydromax reaching an average speed of 653.9 km/h across the Bonneville Salt Flats. The car covered its first run this morning at 644.7 km/h, followed by a second run at 663.3 km/h, giving the record setting average.

Hydrogen land speed record smashes the previous benchmark

Driven by Wing Commander Andy Green OBE, the twin engined, 9.75 metre long car completed both runs required under FIA rules, one in each direction within an hour, comfortably beating the previous FIA officiated hydrogen internal combustion benchmark of 298.5 km/h, set by the BMW H2R back in 2004. The record still needs official ratification from the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), motorsport’s global governing body.

In the process, the Hydromax also beat the 563.4 km/h world diesel land speed record set by JCB Dieselmax, also driven by Green on the very same salt flats back in August 2006. Twenty years on, JCB has topped its own benchmark with an engine that produces no CO2 at the tailpipe. The speed also clears the 487.6 km/h mark previously set by a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, making the Hydromax the fastest hydrogen powered vehicle of any kind in history, regardless of how the hydrogen is used to generate power.

JCB Hydromax Bonneville run used production based digger engines

The record, set in the Category A, Group XIV, Class 7 FIA World Flying Record Start Land Speed Record category, was achieved using two of JCB’s own production based hydrogen digger engines, producing a combined 1,600 bhp (roughly 1,193 kW). Both engines were built at JCB’s engine factory in Foston, Derbyshire, and are the same units currently powering JCB machines and equipment rolling off UK production lines as part of the company’s £100 million hydrogen programme.

JCB chairman Anthony Bamford, who led the hydrogen engine project and first proposed a hydrogen land speed record attempt early last year, framed the achievement as a direct sequel to Dieselmax two decades ago, this time proving that hydrogen power works today at the highest level with zero emissions, using the same production based engines already powering JCB diggers.

Driver Andy Green described Bonneville as the spiritual home of the land speed record and called the Hydromax stable, strong and genuinely fast to drive, framing the achievement, twenty years after Dieselmax, as both a privilege and a testament to the wider engineering team behind it. Ryan Ballard, JCB’s engineering director and project lead, credited the result to the team that took a hydrogen digger engine and turned it into the fastest of its kind on earth, describing the project, which began in February last year, as an extraordinary challenge from the outset.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem called the achievement a genuinely historic milestone for motorsport, one that shows how innovation, performance, speed and sustainability can move forward together. He pointed to motorsport’s long history as a catalyst for technological progress and thanked the FIA’s American member club, the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States, for its support during the record attempt.

A build up through Bonneville Speed Week

The record caps a rapid build up. Just last week, the JCB Hydromax broke through 592.8 km/h at the Southern California Timing Association’s renowned Bonneville Speed Week, setting a new SCTA record in the Blown Gas Streamliner class (AA/BGS, 500+ cubic inches) and marking a major milestone in the car’s development programme.

Green himself remains the fastest man on earth at 1,227.9 km/h, the only person to have broken the sound barrier on land, and was also behind the wheel of JCB Dieselmax when it set the FIA world diesel land speed record of 563.4 km/h at Bonneville in August 2006, a record that still stands today.

JCB’s speed record history

A new US factory on the horizon

The record arrives just ahead of the opening of JCB’s new $500 million factory in San Antonio, Texas, which will employ 1,500 people manufacturing machines for the US market. Speed records have become something of a recurring theme for JCB beyond Dieselmax and Hydromax: the JCB Fastrac became the world’s fastest tractor at 217.6 km/h in 2019, while the JCB GT set the backhoe loader speed record at 116.8 km/h back in 2014.