In October 1997, Wing Commander Andy Green strapped into the Thrust SSC in the Nevada desert and broke 763 mph — traveling faster than sound in a wheeled vehicle on the surface of the earth. He remains the only human being who has ever done that. The record still stands. Nearly three decades later, Green is preparing for another run. This time, the machine runs on hydrogen.
The JCB Hydromax is a twin-engined land speed car powered by two heavily modified hydrogen combustion engines built by JCB and tuned with Ricardo's engineering team. Each engine has been pushed from 74 horsepower to an eye-watering 800 hp, with rpm ceiling raised from 2,200 to 4,500 and torque jumping from 325 lb-ft to 1,300 lb-ft. The car looks nearly identical to JCB's 2006 Dieselmax — same layout, same axle configuration, same general proportions — but it breathes hydrogen instead of diesel fuel.
The target: 350 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats later in 2026. That would shatter both the hydrogen internal combustion record (185.5 mph, set by BMW in 2004) and the hydrogen fuel cell record (302.9 mph, set by Ohio State's Buckeye Bullet 2 in 2009). Green's team already completed low-speed testing at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire — hitting 177 mph — as of earlier this week.
Records in the Crosshairs at Bonneville
The Powertrain
JCB isn't a newcomer to hydrogen. The British construction equipment company has been working on hydrogen combustion engines for its industrial machinery for years — and the core argument is that hydrogen internal combustion makes more sense than pure electric for heavy, high-cycle machinery. The Hydromax record attempt is partly a proof of concept: that hydrogen combustion can produce real speed and real performance numbers under race conditions.
JCB Hydromax — Technical Breakdown
- Engines: 2x JCB/Ricardo hydrogen combustion engines, one per axle
- Power per engine: ~800 hp (up from 74 hp stock)
- Torque per engine: 1,300 lb-ft (up from 325 lb-ft stock)
- Rev ceiling: 4,500 rpm (up from 2,200 rpm)
- Transmission: X-Trac racing gearbox, one per axle
- Chassis: Built by Prodrive (also running the car at Speed Week)
- Venue: Bonneville Salt Flats, Speed Week 2026
Andy Green, 63, Still the Right Man for This
Green is 63 years old and retired from the RAF. He's already done the most dangerous thing a human can do in a wheeled vehicle on flat ground. He knows what it feels like when everything goes wrong at supersonic speeds. He also deployed a parachute during UK testing this week — a routine part of land speed deceleration, but a reminder that this is not normal motorsport.
Veteran endurance racer Darren Turner — a former McLaren F1 test driver — is serving as backup driver throughout the attempt. Green's quote from the Wittering test session is perfectly dry: "Back when we did Dieselmax, I was flippantly saying to the guys, 'If I accidentally drown in the bath or fall down the stairs, what happens?' And the response was 'Don't worry, we'll find you a bungalow with a shower.' But it makes sense to have redundancy for me as well as everything else."
Watch the video above for raw footage of the Hydromax at nearly 180 mph during UK airbase testing — with tire smoke, parachute deployment, and the sound of two 800hp hydrogen engines in a narrow concrete run. It's a good preview of what Bonneville is going to look like when they push toward 350.