The company built JCB Hydromax—a sleek racer powered by hydrogen engines—and sent it to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to set a world record. The average speed of the two runs was 653.909 km/h. No one has accelerated this fast with a hydrogen engine before.

Hidden beneath the elongated body of the Hydromax are two JCB engines, custom-built using components from construction machinery. Each was tuned to around 800 hp, totaling 1,600 horsepower, complete with all-wheel drive. This unusual configuration serves as a demonstration that an excavator engine is capable of much more than simply driving slowly toward a pile of gravel. The previous record for a hydrogen internal combustion engine belonged to the BMW H2R, set back in 2004, and was only 2.5 times the power. In short, JCB didn’t just clear the bar—they surpassed the Bavarians.

Andy Green was at the wheel—a man whose medical record probably included the word «fast.» He was the first person in history to break the sound barrier on land back in 1997. Now, twenty years later, he’s returned to do the same thing, but this time with hydrogen. I admire this new British engineering tradition: first, you build an excavator, and then you look at it and think, «What if we made this into a 1600-horsepower rocket?»