Twenty years ago, JCB did something nobody expected. A company best known for manufacturing vehicles for construction took two diesel engines, put them into a purpose-built land speed record car, and rewrote the record books.
In 2006, Dieselmax reached an incredible 350 miles per hour, proving that diesel technology could deliver world-class performance. Now, JCB is back at it, but with Hydromax – an even bigger challenge. Instead of diesel, JCB is attempting to break that record using hydrogen.
This attempt at the diesel land speed record is the culmination of years of engineering, development and investment into hydrogen combustion technology. It’s also a bold statement about what the future of internal combustion engines could look like.
At RAF Wittering, just outside of Peterborough, the Hydromax team put the car through its final stages of testing last month, before heading to Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States, where it will attempt to become the fastest hydrogen-powered car in the world.
Behind the wheel is Wing Commander Andy Green OBE, the current holder of the world land speed record and no stranger to pushing engineering to its absolute limits. But while the speeds grab the headlines, the real story lies beneath the bodywork. Hydromax is powered by two hydrogen combustion engines, each producing around 800 horsepower, and in tandem generating more than 1,600 horsepower.
What’s remarkable is that these aren’t experimental engines built from scratch. They’re based on the same engine architecture that JCB has been developing for its hydrogen-powered construction equipment. In fact, many of the technologies being tested in this record-breaking machine have been developed alongside engines that are already powering excavators, telehandlers and generators.
It’s all part of JCB’s wider investment in hydrogen as an alternative to diesel for heavy machinery. The company believes hydrogen combustion could offer the performance operators expect, while dramatically reducing carbon emissions, and without fundamentally changing how construction equipment is used or refuelled. It’s a philosophy that’s shaped years of engineering, and has been driven from the very top of the company by JCB Chairman, Lord Anthony Bamford.
From designing hydrogen engines capable of surviving the harsh conditions of construction sites, to developing mobile refuelling systems that bring hydrogen directly to where machines are working, every part of the programme has been focused on making the technology practical. Hydromax simply takes that same engineering and pushes it to the extreme.
During our visit to RAF Wittering, we spoke to the people behind the project, to understand why this record attempt matters. For JCB, the project is about proving that hydrogen combustion can deliver the same durability, reliability and performance that customers have trusted for decades. If it can survive the demands of a 350-mile-per-hour land speed record attempt, it’s a powerful demonstration of what the technology can achieve in the real world.
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