JCB is back with the Hydromax: can it hit 400mph and set a land speed record?

JCB is off to break a Land Speed Record. Wait… what? Actually, if you have any knowledge of the Staffordshire-based digger enthusiasts, this won’t sound that weird because it has history there.

The JCB Hydromax follows in the footsteps of the Dieselmax, which set a diesel land speed record of 350.092mph back in 2006 that still stands today. 20 years on the aim is to go faster with an all-new streamliner, this time powered by hydrogen.

The car will be driven - inevitably - by Andy Green OBE, the go-to safe pair of hands for all your land speed needs. He’s the man who piloted Bloodhound LSR the only time it ran in anger and is still the only person to have broken the sound barrier on land, piloting Thrust SSC to 763.035mph back in 1997.    

JCB’s new car is being built with support from some premier league engineering firms. Rally expert Prodrive is building the car, while the engine development is being done by Ricardo.

Yes, those engines. Real engines as this is hydrogen internally combusted, not a hydrogen fuel cell. There are two of them, each a big turbocharged four cylinder developing somewhere between 800bhp-1,000bhp. JCB is being a bit coy with numbers at the moment.

What is known is that they’re heavily uprated versions of the hydrogen engine that JCB put into production earlier this year. Thinking any internal combustion engine must put out CO2? You’re wrong. The only emission here is water. Okay, plus a little bit of NOx caused by the high temperature combustion process.

This is not going to be a Bloodhound-style long drawn out project. Hydromax will run in the UK this summer, before being shipped out to Bonneville salt flats for its record attempt in August.

There haven't been many land speed cars powered by internally combusted hydrogen, so the target for Hydromax shouldn't be the 187.62mph achieved by BMW with its 6.0-litre V12 7 Series-based H2R, or the current unofficial record of 199.7mph set by stuntman Jesse James back in 2009. The target it must surpass is the Dieselmax - and we’d guess the aim is at least 400mph.

So, 20 years after the Dieselmax, and seven on from the mighty Fastrac Two (a favourite here at TG Towers), JCB is going to go fast again. Faster than ever before perhaps. Speed: a weird way of measuring success for an earth-moving company, but we’re here for it.