Top Gear’s Track-tor sets a new Guinness World Records title!

Tractors. Fine when they’re on the farm, doing their tractoring thing with merry abandon. Not so fine when they join the public highway and hold up Britain’s motorists.

Matt LeBlanc therefore, had a rather exciting solution to the problem. Build something really, really fast. 

So fast, Top Gear’s very own ‘Track-tor’ – complete with a ‘Stig’ on board – has set a Guinness World Records title for the fastest tractor, thanks to a heady top speed of 87.2mph.

It quite frankly obliterates the previous record of 80.87mph, set in Vuojarvi, Finland in February 2015, thanks to liberal use of a 5.7-litre Chevy V8 engine and its 500bhp, a can of Lamborghini orange paint, and many other things. But it’s probably the paint that did it, tbh.

“As the proud owner of no less than four tractors,” said Matt, “you could say I’m a bit of an enthusiast. The theme of this week’s film is that tractors are blocking up Britain.

“When you get stuck behind one, you can’t go anywhere. So we’re trying to speed up farming. When Lewis Hamilton retires, this is what he’ll be driving,” he added.

“To watch The Stig hurtle past me in a tractor at 87mph was surreal, but hugely impressive,” explains Jack Brockbank, GWR adjudicator. “Equally as impressive is the engineering expertise of the Top Gear team that made this possible.”

You can watch the Track-tor in this week’s episode of all-new Top Gear TV, 8pm, Sunday, BBC Two HD and BBC iPlayer.