JCB Hydromax: Banbury’s 350+ mph (!) Speed Machine

When you hear the name JCB, you might think of giant yellow diggers, rumbling tractors, and massive excavators shifting piles of earth on construction sites - they are some of the biggest and heaviest machines on the road. But what happens when you take all of that heavy plant power and use it… for pure mind-blowing speed? Right now, in a top-secret location just a stone’s throw away from Roadster! HQ, JCB is doing just that, working with a legendary British name to build what could be the fastest hydrogen-powered car on the planet!

The JCB Hydromax, an incredibly long 32-foot streamliner, is preparing for a history-making speed run at the famous Bonneville Salt Flats in America—just as the summer issue of Roadster! hits the press!

Under its sleek yellow-and-black JCB skin, the new Hydromax is a masterclass in modern engineering. Instead of burning dirty fossil fuels, it uses hydrogen internal combustion engines. These are based on the exact same engine blocks JCB fits to its giant construction diggers! These monsters have been hyper-tuned from a standard 80 horsepower to an incredible 800 horsepower each! Because there are two engines stuffed inside, the car produces a massive 1,600 horsepower in total!

Engineering legends Prodrive have been working secretly at their Banbury headquarters to build the vehicle's bodywork, suspension, and cockpit. They had to completely reinvent the way the machinery fits together, even laying the digger engines down on their sides to squeeze them inside the narrow car. The goal is simple: smash past 350 mph while producing absolutely zero carbon emissions. The only thing coming out of the exhaust pipes is water vapour!

By targeting the Land Speed Record, JCB is joining a legendary club that goes all the way back to December 18, 1898 - more than 125 years ago! The very first record was set just outside Paris, France, by a French aristocrat named Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat. He drove a boxy car called a Jeantaud Duc to an unfeasable top speed of… 39.24 mph! 

JCB actually has a long history of being completely obsessed with breaking records. Back in 2014, they built a modified dragster digger called the JCB GT that became the world's fastest backhoe loader at 72 mph.! Then in 2019, they built the JCB Fastrac - the fastest tractor in the world at a staggering 135 mph!

But their biggest milestone happened twenty years ago, in August 2006. JCB’s Chairman, Lord Bamford, wanted to prove that British digger engines were the toughest in the world. They built a pencil-shaped car called the Dieselmax that went a blistering 350.092 mph, setting a world diesel land speed record that still hasn't been beaten 

Now, the very same driver is returning to the cockpit for this new hydrogen chapter: Wing Commander Andy Green OBE. He is a retired RAF fighter pilot and the fastest human on Earth, famously becoming the first and only person to break the sound barrier on land back in 1997 at 763 mph!

Designing a car to do this is a once-in-a-lifetime challenge. The salt-flat racetrack in Utah has been shrinking due to climate changes, giving Andy Green just nine miles to accelerate to top speed, slow down safely, and stop. That means the Hydromax has to accelerate much harder and stay completely stable at speeds faster than a passenger jet!

Testing begins on British runways this summer before the team ships the car across the Atlantic for SpeedWeek in August. If successful, the Hydromax will change the world of motorsport forever, proving that the future of super-speed can be completely clean.

Projects like the Hydromax prove that the future of engineering is experimental, ambitious, and powered by big ideas. Best of all, it reminds us that world-changing projects don't just happen in far-off, high-tech labs. Sometimes, they are built right in your own hometown!

Roadster! wishes the Banbury and JCB teams the absolute best of luck on the salt!