Back in June, the team at Drayson Racing took its electric Le Mans prototype to the Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire, England, and set a new land speed record for electric vehicles. The competition-spec EV hit a top speed of 204.185 miles per hour, shattering the previous record that stood at 175 mph since 1974.
A couple of weeks ago, Autoblog's video series, The List: 1,001 Car Things to do Before You Die, tackled somet
Salt fever is an affliction that drives those infected to spend the better part of the year dreaming, scheming and building machines to race across the alien landscape that is the Bonneville Salt Flats in search of land-speed-record glory. Bill Dube and Eva Håkansson have a high-voltage case of it.
You've probably heard of Mickey Thompson, if not for racing home-built Indy cars or punting early Funny Cars down drag strips, perhaps for the tire company he founded, his successful forays into off-road racing or, crucially, his attempts to break land speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats. In 1960, he became the fastest man in the world after going 406 miles per hour in his ra
Motorcycle land-speed record holder Bill Warner died yesterday after crashing during an attempt at setting another record. The 44-year-old was clocked at 285 miles per hour on the runway of a former air base in northern Maine, before he lost control of his modified Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle and veered off the runway.
A 39-year-old FIA World Electric Land Speed Record has fallen to a sleek, green electric machine called the Lola. Officially the Drayson B12 69/EV electric Le Mans Prototype, the 1000-kilogram (2,204-pound) race car hit a top speed of 204.185 miles per hour yesterday at RAF Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire, England. That's over 29 mph faster than the previous record of 175 mph that was set in 1974 by Battery Box General Electric.
UK-based Drayson Racing Technologies today set an FIA world electric land speed record at RAF Elvington airstrip in Yorkshire, England. Their B12 69/EV electric Le Mans Prototype topped out at 204.185 miles per hour on the 1.86 mile-long runway. The modified low-drag electric race car was piloted by the company's owner and former UK science minister Lord Paul Drayson. "The reason we are doing this is t
Frenchman François Gissy has laid claim to a new land speed record using a rocket-powered bicycle. Yes, you read that right. A rocket-powered bicycle. Gissy and his bicycle managed to hit a mind-boggling 163 miles per hour (263 kilometers per hour) over a vacant stretch of highway in Munchhouse, France over the weekend.
Rolls-Royce, the "power solutions" company that makes jet engines and much more (not the luxury motorcar company) has signed on to support the Bloodhound SSC Land Speed Record attempt project. This isn't just a financial tie-up and exchange of engines and tech, though, Rolls-Royce is just as interested as the Bloodhound gang in promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics to children in the UK and around the world.
Top that, Wolverines! Ohio State University is once again teaming with Venturi in an effort to set land-speed records for electric vehicles, with the team's next escapade set for September. Meet the third Buckeye Bullet, also known as the Venturi VBB-3.
In and effort to promote the high-speed grip of its new Hakkapeliitta 8 winter tire, Nokian threw a set of its new rubber on a race-prepped Audi RS6 and got moving – very, very quickly. In fact, on March 9 on top of the very frozen Gulf of Bothinia near Oulu, Finland, Nokian's test driver Janne Laitinen set a new world record for the fastest speed recorded driving on ice. If you'll rec
Lightning Motorcycles is no stranger to setting land speed records. It laid down a 173.388 mile-per-hour marker for electric motorcycles in 2010 on the Bonneville Salt Flats, and then upped the ante significantly in 2011 with a 215.960 mph performance on t
There are an infinite number of impressive aspects to getting a 1992 Audi to clip past the 260-mph barrier. For starters, there's the fact that Jeff Gerner managed to milk a full 1,100 horsepower from the five-cylinder S4 before shuttling the power to the ground via an all-wheel drive system without vaporizing an axle. That alone deserves a round of applause, but for us, the most awe-inspiring aspect of the feat is just how smooth and drama-free the sa
Behold the fastest production hybrid in the world. For the second time this year, the Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid LSR has moved the terminal-veolcity bar higher by averaging 186.313 mph at Bonneville. That breaks the SCTA's land speed record for production cars with forced induction engines of less than 1.5 liters.
James Hoegh's mission to go faster than 168.912 mph on a naked bike on the Bonneville Salt Flats has met success. Hoegh traversed the salt during the BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials at 172.211 mph, entering the books in the APF3000 class as the rider on the world's fastest big block American V-twin.
Brandon Nozaki Miller – A.K.A. the Electric Cowboy – is on a mission: to prove you don't need big-time money to have big-time fun competing on an electric motorcycle. To help make his case, he's just set several land speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats.
After blasting down the Bonneville Salt Flats at 185 miles per hour, the 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid is now the "world's fastest hybrid," according to VW.
After blasting down the Bonneville Salt Flats at 185 miles per hour, the 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid is now the "world's fastest hybrid," according to VW.
When Nissan wants to set a speed record, you'd expect it to use the GT-R to get there. Or maybe one of its myriad racing cars – it does, after all, power the bulk of the LMP2 racers on the grid at Le Mans, not to mention the experimental DeltaWing
It may not fit everyone's definition of green, but the supercar you see above did manage to hit 134 miles per hour in the quarter mile without burning a drop of gasoline. The 1,600+ horsepower, carbon-fiber-bodied Maxximus LNG 2000 can burn propane (a fossil fuel, also known as LPG), and it did so when driver/designer Marlon Kirby roared the car down the track in March to set the following benchmarks, all world records for an LPG-powered car,
