© 2025 New Atlas
Automotive

The world's fastest road car - 1900 rear wheel horsepower and 267 mph after one mile

By Mike Hanlon
May 11, 2010
The world's fastest road car - 1900 rear wheel horsepower and 267 mph after one mile
View 1 Image
1/1

The emerging sport of One Mile Racing has a new champion – Ray Hofman's 2006 Ford GT runs a twin-turbo motor with a reputed 1900 rear wheel horsepower. A fortnight ago, Hofman piloted his Heffner Performance modified GT over the measured mile with a terminal velocity of 266.9 mph, beating out the other two logical contenders for the title of the world's fastest street car. Just for the record, a Bugatti Veyron exits the standing mile at just over 200 mph. Hofman is now aiming for 280 mph. Is this the world's fastest road car?

Given that motorsport is little more than a century old, it seems logical that new forms of competition should continually evolve. Informal post-war run-offs between car modders became the drag racing industry and similar but more recent homegrown endeavor catalyzed the spectacular new sport of drifting. Now another form of competition is quickly evolving based largely around a bi-annual event held at a remote airfield near the small town of Goliad in Texas.

The Texas mile has been held each March and October at the Goliad airstrip since 2003 and it has now attracted a national following and a global reputation for beckoning the man on the street to "Drive in Your World, Race in Ours!"

In essence, anyone can enter and it's an opportunity to run your street registered motorcycle or car down the measured mile without the fear of speeding tickets and jail time and the aim of the exercise is to see what speed your vehicle is doing at the end of the mile.

The popularity of the Texas Mile and the size of the United States has resulted in several other events to springing up around the country and on April 28, the Florida Exotics Event was held at the Dade-Collier Airport in Florida. The weekend saw some serious activity in the domain of the "world's fastest street car" when the world record was broken not once but twice for the fastest terminal speed at the end of a measured mile.

The first record fell, (and remember this is by a street legal, roadgoing, car), when a Lamborghini Gallardo TT ran 255 mph at the end of a mile. This record was then smashed by a heavily modified Ford GT which ran 266.9 mph. The car was built by Heffner Performance, and both driven and owned by Ray Hofman, the President and CEO of Peak Completions from Midland, Texas.

The yellow Ford GT is equipped with a standard 6-speed manual transmission, runs a stock engine block and heads, retains its airconditioning, power windows and power door-locks, and it also has an original, completely stock body with no aerodynamic modifications other than removing the rear view mirrors.

Performance modifications to the Hofman Motorsports Ford GT include twin turbo-chargers installed by Heffner Performance (follow them on Twitter), internal engine work by Accufab Racing, and tuning/electrical work by Sakata Motorsports. The twin turbo engine is reportedly producing in excess of 1900 bhp and ran its record speed into a direct 18 mph headwind.

Video of the car's first shakedown weekend at the Texas Mile in March can be found here and here, and videos of the record run in Miami can be found here, here and here.

Hoffman racing's full story of that initial weekend of getting the car running fast and culminating in a 250 mph run on the first weekend in Texas can be found here and the full rundown of the Miami weekend can he found here.

They are now talking up the chances of breaking 280 mph soon.

Tags

AutomotiveFordLamborghiniBugattiGallardoMotorsportWorld's FastestFord GT
10 comments
Mike Hanlon
Mike Hanlon
As a photojournalist, Mike’s work has been published in a dozen languages across 20+ countries. He has edited or managed over 75 different print publications, each with a different target audience: sports, automotive, advertising, marketing, design, ad infinitum. Mike has been working in the internet for more than 25 years and was the veteran of five internet start-ups before founding New Atlas in 2002.

Most Viewed

Load More
10 comments
letmethinkaboutthis
electric cars, bikes, trucks will beat them all.
the internal combustion motor is primitive, even with advanced engine management systems and twin turbochargers, anything, everything.
you will NEVER get efficiency from a device where the piston goes up and stops, then comes down and stops, then goes back up agains and stops .... even at 18000 rpm, or whatever you want.
but to provide a force - a very large force, say - onto something that is already spinning around, this is efficient.
with IC engines, you get about 20% of the calorific value of the liquid fuel as energy on the back wheels. with electric, you get about 80% of the calorific value in the batteries on the back wheels.
if you then add the whole filth of mining oil out the ground or ocean, transporting it thousands of miles to pay arabs for the pleasure of receiving it, then spewing out much poison into the atmosphere, you may start thinking, gee, those IC driven cars and things were nice for a while back then but maybe there are better ways of doing this.
Captain Danger
The artical is not about effiency of the internal cumbustion engine. It is about the Worlds fastest road car. Why don\'t you kep your political commentary out of this artical and bow down before the allmight BLUE OVAL whose creation of the GT has crushed the competition. better yet get on your electric scooter , and ride off into the sunset where you can get into enviomental harmony with the rest of your hippie friends and on other thing IN YOUR FACE CHEVY.
Pres
The problem is not the superior operation of an electric motor for vehicle usage -it is still the energy storage problem (i.e. batteries).
When sufficient electrical energy is able to be stored in a manner similar to hydrocarbon fuel density then certainly electric power will prevail.
Most all of us look forward to that time.
In the meantime, how about 300 mph, just to see if it can be done! :-)
The Skud
When they manage to replace all the coal fired power stations, having a few IC motors around won\'t seem as bad as is now claimed. It is a pity that the Wankle rotary engine has lost favour, development on the seals (the equivalent of oil rings in ordinary IC motors) was gradually refining the efficiency and green credentials of this non-stop motor. With the development effort that has gone into other petrol engines (and for that matter diesels) the Wankle rotary could still be the way to go until alternative energy catches up in efficiency and price, let alone the cost of upgrading the delivery systems for electric power to cope with the quick-recharge demand. At present, if even 10-20 per cent of car owners switched to electric cars, hybrid or not (there\'s irony for you, electric cars using IC to recharge) the grid would probably collapse undeer overload.
marshall91t
267MPH is fine if your on a straight road, I\'m sure like most american muscle cars it handles like a cow...the world fastest road car should be one capeable of doing an actual race circuit in the shortest time.
I completely agree with the skud the IC rotary engine is far better than the conventional one, its a shame it hasnt been developed further.
I still cant understand why they dont use capacitors to power cars, opposed to batteries...there is already a capacitor replacement for a regular 12V car battery...
Griffin
This is a modern GT 40. This is the fastest in the asphalt mile but not at Bonneville,though. Several street legal cars have cleared 300mph there. It is much harder because of poor traction and you have to do it averaged out over a whole measured mile during a 5-8 mile course. I know: I race both. Also,many of these cars are running race fuel and the motors are temporarily turned way up(turbo waste gate pressure,etc.)so they are by no means driven daily at this level of performance. For the record,though,the original Ford GT 40 finished 1st at LeMans 1966,1967,1968 AND 1969. In 1966,Ferrari\'s 6 year reign ended with an astounding 1st,2nd AND 3rd place finish by the Ford GT 40.
The specific Ford GT 40 that won in 1968 and 1969 is the ONLY car that has ever won LeMans twice.
Yes,Americans can build cars that can outhandle the best Europe has to offer.
Myrrh Massiel
\"Yes, Americans can build cars that can outhandle the best Europe has to offer.\"
The GT 40 and Ford GT are both fantastic cars, no doubt, but before you beat your chest too patriotically, bear in mind that the former was developed by Lola, an English company.
The latter chassis was actually built by Saleen.
John in Brisbane
OK lets leave the flame wars to the kids on youtube.
The electric car comments are off topic but probably correct - I\'m 35 and if the energy density issue is sorted out with batteries I reckon I will see out IC transport. I am a pilot, not a hippie although I am man enough to admit the hippies are right. Annoying, but right. I bet that every roof will be covered in solar cells before too long - nice cheap ones. But nothing beats hydrocarbons weight for weight so some synthetic replacement needs to come along in the interim - or even good old hydrogen when the storage issues are fixed, which seems to be happening.
re - Le Mans - yep, ford set out to beat ferrari and they did. Both the old and new gt40 (the new one is really a gt44 I believe) are awesome. But they only led for a while. Since then though, few would argue that the best road cars have come out of the US and the styles of racing favoured in the US reflect this. BBCs top gear races road cars around a track and there are few US vehicles near the top of that list. They rate the Covette though.
Its amazing they were able to keep the 6 speed transmission with 1900 horses! I\'m sure its MTBF is measured in minutes or hours but that is one tough box. And maybe more amazing that there is anyone is the US who knows how to use one :-)
Matheus Garda
They should do a top speed run at that european track where the Veyron set its record. 1900 HP should be good for 470-480 kmh...
Dave Cummings
What I hate is the misinterpretation of what record this car broke. It's not listed as "the worlds fastest street car" it's listed as " the fastest standing mile (car) this week at 283.232 mph." Performance Power Racing. So I think this title of this article is inaccurate.
This is the excerpt directly from the GBR site! "Performance Power Racing reset the record for the fastest standing mile (car) this week at 283.232 mph."
Althouh the qoute the drivers comments. And he does say they broke the worlds fastest street car, but that not what the total of the actual record book says.
Not trying to rain on their parade. But it's all plain obvious on the GBR site! Here is the link to the claim of this record. Which the writer on this article should have shared. http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2012/10/performance-power-racing-drives-through-fastest-standing-mile-record-at-kennedy-space-center-45612/ As you see the title in the link.
Also who cares what brand or maker of the car! The record that was broke did not indicate an automaker. But rather what car broke it. Saying anything to promote the brand of the car that broke it is irrelevant! There had been plenty different brand of cars that obtained this record. But the claim or title I am say is BS! GBR doesn't show that is the record they broke. And if you have proof or show us that certificate and if it says "worlds fastest street car" then I will retort my claim. Otherwise, it's still up in the air. Oh and for the record. People stop being stupid and discriminatory on who better! It's a combination of how the vehicle is built, designed, and driven by an experienced driver.