A British team has set a new hydrogen-powered International Automobile Federation (FIA) land speed record. On Tuesday, JCB’s Hydromax car reached 406.320mph at the Bonneville salt flats in Utah.
The car was driven by Andy Green, a former RAF wing commander, who also holds the current outright land speed record of 763.035mph. This record was set in 1997 in the ThrustSSC car, making him the only person to have broken the sound barrier on land.
This achievement coincides with the FIA's initiative to digitise and make public its extensive archive of land speed records. The collection, held in Valleiry, France, is one of the first projects to be undertaken and will be made public shortly, according to Roger Banowetz, president of the FIA land speed records commission.
The archive, which includes over two million documents and pictures, along with handwritten notes and letters, spans more than a century of record-breaking attempts. It documents the evolution of the competition, from early electric cars to the jet and rocket-powered vehicles of the 1960s.