Meet the world's (second) fastest... wheelbarrow

“Is it like, y'know, riding a bike?”

“Um, it’s more like pushing a wheelbarrow. Except the wheelbarrow is trying to kill you.”

Dylan Phillips is the third land speed record holder I’ve had the privilege to interview, after road car speed king Andy Wallace and sound barrier smasher Andy Green. But Dylan’s different – he built a certifiable straight line speed machine all by himself.

Bolting a 7bhp Honda SJ100 ‘Bali’ scooter engine to an unsuspecting Haemmerlin wheelbarrow in a workshop buried in deepest Pembrokeshire, this softly spoken 38-year-old Welshman created a garden tool capable of tearing down the RAF Elvington runway at a certified 52.58mph average. Pray silence please for the fastest wheelbarrow on Earth.

Photography: Huckleberry Mountain

“I didn’t expect this to blow up like it did,” Dylan admits. “There are so many things going on in the news, you just don’t expect messing about with a wheelbarrow to get any traction.”

So where did the inspiration come from? “I’ve always had an interest in machinery, things that work, but it’s taken a long time to find that little niche,” he shrugs. “To almost feel comfortable enough in being uncool to just do this stuff.” Top Gear readers will agree this a very long way from uncool.

“Like all the best and worst plans, it started in the pub. I had this idea of strapping a scooter engine onto a wheelbarrow and just sort of having a laugh with it. It hadn’t even crossed my mind there were world records for this sort of thing. After I built it, there was another late night pub discussion wondering if there was a Guinness World Record.”

To compete in a certified speed trial, the barrow had to be rebuilt to NORA 92 official standards, with a kill switch, paint marks on fastenings to ensure nothing’s working loose and even a hydraulic damper on the steering bars to stave off a terminal tank slapper (barrow basher?).

“It still does get a wobble on,” grimaces Dylan. “If you built a bike with this frame geometry it would be the worst looking bike in the world. You’d have a front wheel two feet out in front of the forks. So yeah, the steering damper helps a bit, but the issue is slowing down.” Not least because there are no brakes fitted to the go kart wheels either side of the scratch built ‘trolley’ that Dylan kneels in. Only the driven front wheel retains its scooter brake.

Dylan admits that’s the main flaw he needs to troubleshoot for MkII: the brakes. And the steering – semi impossible because he’s forced to tuck his elbows in like a ski jumper. Also above 50mph the barrow acts like a wing and tries to take off. Oh, and the weight distribution is a touch sketchy – that barrel slung into the skids isn’t the fuel tank – it’s an old fire extinguisher full of wet sand to offer stabilising ballast.

The next generation of speed barrow will have its engine hung down there (“mid-engined, y’see”) chain driving the front wheel with brakes to all three wheels. Dylan is rightly proud of the fact this isn’t some quasi barrow silhouette racer. It’s 100 per cent garden centre. “If you pulled the engine off and uncoupled the back you could use it on a building site.”

Dylan’s homebrew efforts don’t stop there. Scattered about his workshop there’s a motorbike straight out of Mad Max powered by the (vast) engine from a 1952 cement mixer, another build rescuing bits of Chinese bike fished from a riverbed, and ‘Project Dear Oh Deere’ – a ride on lawnmower fused with the 110bhp V twin off a Honda Firestorm superbike.

It’s all for a good cause – Dylan’s monthly workshop open evenings raise money for the DPJ Foundation, a mental health charity working to support the Welsh agricultural sector. And having proved his concept out of his own pocket he’s hoping sponsors will support the next build. He’s already been supplied with a fresh barrow.

He’ll need it – within days of us meeting Dylan, he had word from the USA the benchmark had been raised. An Iowan by the name of John Loghry managed 55mph on his homemade motor barrow, while raising funds for Vietnam veterans.

The Welsh response is expected to kick out a mighty 28bhp and be geared for north of 70mph. The pan-Atlantic charity speed barrow battle has begun.