land speed record

Richard Brown is our kind of guy. Back in 1999, he set the one-way record for the top speed on a motorcycle at 362 mph, and he's spent the years since working on a sub-orbital rocket and a gas turbine jet pack. Surprisingly enough, those two projects haven't been enough to occupy Brown's time, ...

We've been told there was a time when critics of the automobile warned against the dangers of high-speed driving. At the lofty speed of 35 miles per hour, they said, the air could very well be sucked right out of your lungs, leaving you to die of asphyxiation as you careened along at the edge of ...

Hemmings reports that Craig Breedlove is preparing to jump back into the land speed record game in an attempt to break through the 800 mph barrier. Breedlove made a name for himself while vying with Art Arfons for the world land speed record back in the '60s. His efforts eventually landed him the ...

At the Loring Timing Association in Maine, John Petsche drove a highly modified motorcycle into the record books. Powered by a six-horsepower industrial diesel engine and fueled by store-bought vegetable oil, Petsche's two-wheeler hit a top speed of 56.535 miles per hour, sufficient to set a ...

If you thought a 202-mph run seemed like a hell of a pace for a Škoda Octavia, hold on to your hats, folks, because the Czech automaker's team at Bonneville has set a new record. With a beefed-up turbocharger and intercooler, enhanced aerodynamics and the requisite safety modifications, ...

What's the fastest you've ever driven? We're sure many of you have crested the century mark. Some of you may have seen 150 miles per hour crawl by on the speedo, and perhaps a lucky few have experience 200. We can all but guarantee that none of you have gone as fast George Poteet, though. Poteet ...

The Volkswagen Group is flush with vehicles capable of earth-shattering velocities. Porsche. Lamborghini. Bugatti. Even Bentley has demonstrated its propensity for the v-max with its Ice Speed Record Continental. And Audi models are regularly tuned for high-speed runs at Nardo. But Skoda? We've ...

Way in the back of the Fiat booth at this year's Geneva Motor Show, behind all of the shiny modern machinery with their tiny, fuel-sipping engines, sat a car that looks like one of those wood-carved models you ...

As a species, we've been obsessed with pushing ourselves ever faster since we first took to two legs. It should be no surprise, then, that the internal combustion engine and the land-speed record have evolved at roughly the same pace over the last century or so. In order to celebrate the ...

Danny Thompson, the son of Mickey Thompson, has a need for speed that's satiated when he hits the salt flats in his 1,300-horsepower Ford Mustang. Thompson had previously recorded a top speed of 252 ...