JCB’s bid to set a world hydrogen land speed record is moving ahead, with the car now built and testing under way.
The company unveiled its aim to set the record with the JCB Hydromax car, powered by two JCB hydrogen digger engines, at its world headquarters in Staffordshire on 12 May. Just over a month later, the build is complete and full testing is under way at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire, England, where the car reached a speed of 177mph on 16 June, driven by Wing Commander Andy Green OBE.
Next month the car will be flown to Bonneville, Utah, USA, in preparation for its record bids on the Salt Flats, including an attempt to set a Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) world hydrogen land speed record. The FIA is the global governing body for motor sport and the federation for mobility organisations worldwide.
JCB chairman Anthony Bamford has spearheaded JCB’s £100 million investment to develop hydrogen powered internal combustion engines. JCB diggers powered by the technology are now rolling off production lines. Lord Bamford says: “Twelve months ago this car was a set of drawings being discussed by a room full of engineers. Today it is a reality and on wheels, running, and being tested in the UK. The team has done a wonderful job to get us to this point. Our focus now turns to the real challenge: setting a world hydrogen land speed record in Bonneville.”
JCB engineering director Ryan Ballard, who is leading the project, says: “More than 150,000 hours of work has got us to this point; the next phase is where we find out what the car actually does, not what we think it will do. Every run, every refuel and every tyre change we complete in the UK is one our team won’t be doing for the first time on the Salt Flats. Our goal is simple: to arrive at Bonneville fully prepared, with a car and a crew that know exactly what they are doing.”
President of the FIA, H.E. Mohammed Ben Sulayem says: “JCB Hydromax’s first official test marks an important milestone on the road to a new hydrogen land speed record. This is a big achievement and I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to Lord Bamford and the entire JCB team. Through this world record attempt JCB is pushing the boundaries of engineering innovation and hydrogen technology, demonstrating the role motorsport can play to advance the future of mobility. I look forward to seeing the project continue to develop ahead of its world record attempt in August.”
The initial technical partner meeting for the project, with JCB, Prodrive, Ricardo and Xtrac, was held on 5 June 2025, and almost a year to the day the 32-foot JCB Hydromax rolled onto the tarmac at RAF Wittering for its first run under its own hydrogen power. This marked the start of a full UK test programme covering shakedown runs, hydrogen refuelling drills and pit-stop rehearsals.
The JCB Hydromax is powered by two of the company’s own production-based hydrogen internal combustion engines, producing a combined 1,600bhp, the same engines now powering JCB diggers. It uses the same propulsion as JCB’s 3CX Hydrogen backhoe loader. Around 1km of wiring runs through the car, while there has been extensive use of 3D-printed components to keep weight down and packaging tight. The crankshaft is the same one JCB uses in its 448 hydrogen and diesel engines, the land speed car being built on production hardware. The pistons alone require one litre of cooling oil every second, as much oil flow as the rest of the engine combined, to stop them overheating. A specially developed exhaust valve technology handles the temperatures generated by 1,600bhp of hydrogen combustion. Each titanium turbo compressor spins at more than 150,000rpm at close to 300°C, pumping the equivalent of a standard bathtub of air every half-second. On a full record run, JCB Hydromax will consume just over 2kg of hydrogen and produce 18 litres of water.
The car carries twin parachutes and carbon brakes to bring it to a halt, along with 250kg of ice to manage engine heat, all of which melts during a full run. Specially fitted salt ducts reduce drag from the Bonneville surface, while turbocharging compensates for the thin air at the flats’ 1,300-metre altitude.
The UK testing puts every system under load for the first time: the powertrain, four-wheel drive transmission, clutch, brakes, cooling and bespoke control electronics. The test at RAF Wittering focused on data gathering rather than outright speed, working through gears one to three and reaching 177mph.
“So ultimately we’ve got the hydrogen powered backhoe loader 3CX, a very familiar JCB product. And also today we’ve got the JCB Hydromax land speed record car. Both run on compressed hydrogen gas,” says Cameron Scott, senior engineer at JCB.
“We’re going to go and set a new record to prove that this is the combustion engine that has a future, that has a life in our industry,” says Tom Beamish, advanced projects deployment manager at JCB.
At Bonneville, JCB Hydromax will be driven by Andy Green, the fastest man on earth at 763.035mph, the only person to break the sound barrier on land, and the driver of JCB Dieselmax when it set the FIA world diesel land speed record of 350.092mph at Bonneville in August 2006. That record still stands. Green set his outright land speed record in 1997 in the jet-powered Thrust SSC.
Following UK testing, the team will travel to Bonneville for SpeedWeek, run by the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), where international teams will gather from 1 to 7 August to chase records across multiple categories. The team will then remain at the Salt Flats to pursue officially recognised world records under the FIA. JCB is targeting 350mph, aiming to beat the JCB Dieselmax record with a car that is lighter, more powerful and faster than its 2006 predecessor. The current FIA hydrogen combustion record stands at 187.62mph, set by BMW’s H2R.
“We’re going to make absolutely certain we draw a line under Dieselmax and say everything below here is 0 carbon, and even faster,” says Green.
JCB’s record attempt comes ahead of the opening of the company’s new $500 million, one million sq ft, 400-acre factory in San Antonio, Texas, which will employ 1,500 people manufacturing machines for the US market. In 2019, the JCB Fastrac tractor was crowned the world’s fastest tractor at 135.191mph, and in 2014 the JCB GT set the world record for the fastest backhoe loader at 72.58mph.
Images: JCB
