RideLust

The current land speed record stands at 763 miles per hour. It was set in 1997 by Andy Green in the Thrust SSC. The Bloodhound project plans to pilot this jet-powered needle to 1,000 mph. The frowning blue-and-orange missile isn’t actually functional—it’s a full-scale model built to test aerodynamics. It was revealed earlier this week in an attempt to get kids into algebra. The jet car is the centerpiece of the Bloodhound Education Program, which shows kids that it’s possible to use the power of algebra to hurtle across the salt flats at the speed of sound. The Bloodhound team plans to finish the jet car early next year. Hit the jump for a video of the model.

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We told you about the new Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport breaking the production car land speed record here, and soon five lucky buyers will have the chance to park a black and orange Veyron 16.4 Super Sport in their heavily secured garages.

Bugatti will build a limited production run of the 1,200 horsepower special edition Veyron, which will be unveiled to the public at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. In addition to the extra 200 horsepower, the Super Sport version will feature enhanced aerodynamics, which assisted in the world record run of 268 miles per hour, as well as a stiffened chassis to further improve handling. Super Sport buyers won’t be able to attempt their own land speed records runs, as production Super Sports will be electronically limited to a maximum speed of 258 miles per hour. Why? Apparently Michelin, the exclusive tire supplier to the Bugatti Veyron, won’t certify their tires for speeds above 258 miles per hour.

The first five cars will be released in the special black and orange color scheme of the land speed record car, and Bugatti isn’t saying how many more Super Sports will be built beyond that. As Autoevolution reports, they’ve also been silent about the price of the über-Veyron, but that doesn’t matter since all five land speed record replicas have already been sold. If you’ve got the coin to buy and drive a Veyron, I guess you don’t need to worry about how much it costs.

Why is Boije Ovebrink smiling? Because he just set a new, FIA sanctioned land speed record for tractor-trailers in his specially prepared Volvo. Averaging 81.32 miles per hour for 500 meters and 103.58 miles per hour for a full kilometer (averaged speeds), Ovebrink crossed the finish line at 155 miles per hour.

Ovebrink’s truck uses a 16 liter Volvo D16 motor as a starting point, but his is tweaked to produce 2,000 horsepower and 3,687 foot pounds of torque. That’s quite a bit more than any supercar I can think of, but supercars don’t have the kind of mass behind them that Ovebrink’s Volvo does. It almost makes me wonder what his lap times on the Nordschleife would be.

Source: Volvo semi-truck sets land speed record

Ever since I was a kid I wanted a riding lawnmower as I just thought they were the coolest things. A few of my friends had them and when I went over their homes after school, instead of playing sports like baseball or football, I just wanted to cut the grass. Sure it sounds crazy but as an 11 year old kid piloting a riding lawnmower was as close to driving a car as I was going to get. The riding mower, as with any object with 4 wheels and an engine just begs to be modified, and as men it is our calling to do so. UK resident Don Wales did just this when he decided that he wanted to be the man with the fastest mower in the world. At Pendine Sands in Carmarthenshire, West UK ran 87.833 mph on a machine that was built by using primarily lawnmower parts. For the run to count however he needed to prove the mower was also able to cut grass, which he did the morning before the run. The previous record was set in 2006 at the Bonneville Salt Flats at a speed of 80.792 mph.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Electric motorcycles are so new that it’s hard to put their performance characteristics into perspective. Mission Motors, one of the new breed of electrified two-wheeled manufacturers, has accomplished the mechanical equivalent of sprinting a couple of weeks after you’re born: breaking the 150 MPH mark (and unofficially breaking the electric motorcycle land speed record) less than two years after the company was founded. Mission’s baby took to the Bonneville salt and hit a two-way average of 150.059 MPH, with an earlier unofficial sprint of up to 161 MPH. The bike is still a prototype; however, it’s the same bike that took 4th place at the TTxGP “Green Grand Prix” at the Isle of Man earlier this year.

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Take that, colonials!

Steam, you know, that stuff between your girlfriend’s ears, is good for more than just blowing money on Express jeans or heating archaic buildings. In your Grandpappy’s day it was used to power automobiles, fast automobiles. Back then steam-powered cars regularly blew (or scalded) the paint off of their internal combustion counterparts. Ask anybody besides Jay Leno about this business and you’ll get a pretty odd look.

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Koenigsegg CCR

From Wikipedia:

“During its review of the CCR’s successor, the CCX, BBC television program Top Gear reported that the Koenigsegg CCR holds the fastest speeding ticket in the United States allegedly occured in May 2003 in Texas. It was supposedly 242mph (389 km/h) in a 75mph zone. The car was involved in the San Francisco to Miami Gumball 3000 Rally.”

That much I knew. But the rest of the story, if true, is easily twice as ludicrous. Read More…

The performance gurus at Shelby Super Cars have seriously upped the ante with their newest introduction into the supercar fray: the Shelby Aero EV. Powered by an All-Electric Scalable Powertrain (AESP), the SSC Aero EV is capable of producing 1,000 horsepower and 800 lb-ft of torque. Leaving former hybrid performance heavyweights like the Tesla Roadster in the dust, the Shelby Aero EV also boasts the ability to sprint from 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds before maxing out at 208 mph. Shaving hours off the Roadster’s 3-hour recharge time, the SSC Aero EV’s 150-200 mile-range battery can be fully recharged via a standard 220V outlet in a mere 10 minutes. Scheduled to begin production during the fourth quarter of 2009, pre-production prototypes of the SSC Ultimate Aero EV are expected to debut in June. No word yet on how much one of SSC’s mean green machines will cost, but if previous history is anything to go on, expect it to hurt.

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The North American Eagle LSR car is an F-104 without wings. (Photo by Terry Parkhurst)

Ed Shadle has a dream. It is to use a F-104 Starfighter jet fighter plane, sans wings and retrofitted with a powerful turbine engine and hand-crafted aluminum wheels instead of rubber tires, to set a new world land speed record.

Shadle has set speed records at the Bonnevile Salt Flats in the street roadster. Back in 1993, he took a roadster based on a 1927 Ford model “T” body, powered by a 258 cubic-inch Chevrolet V8, to 159.43 mph.

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