Land Speed Records

Climbing a power pole with five sets of jumper leads, a young Mike Corbin tapped into mains power to charge up his electric bike for a Bonneville run. Powered by silver "borrowed" from a US Navy vault, Quicksilver went on to set a land speed record that stood for 38 long years. Here's his story.

Hyundai took a 2017 Ioniq hybrid prototype to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, injected some nitrous oxide, and let 'er rip to achieve an FIA-approved production-based hybrid land speed record of 157.825 mph (253.995 km/h)​.

The electric vehicle world speed record has remained steady since the Venturi Buckeye Bullet 2.5 electric streamliner set a 307.7-mph (495 km/h) mark in 2010. That changed on Monday, when the VBB-3 sped to a new electric vehicle record just over 341.4 mph (549.4 km/h).​

There are many race tracks around the world, but none can claim the all-out speed pedigree of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Western Utah. New Atlas made the trip out to this year's annual Speed Week to explore this mysterious arena of balls-to-the-wall speed.

Volvo Trucks is claiming two new world land speed records. It's custom-built "Iron Knight" truck reportedly achieved an average speed of 131.29 km/h (81.58 mph) and a time of 13.71 seconds over 500 m (1,640 ft) and 169 km/h (105 mph) with a time of 21.29 seconds over 1,000 m (3,281 ft).

The Triumph Infor Rocket Streamliner has become the fastest ever Triumph motorcycle, reaching a speed 274.2 mph (441.1 km/h). Piloted by Guy Martin, the streamliner topped the previous Triumph record of 245.667 mph (395.4 km/h) in preparation for a tilt at the motorcycle land speed record.

Having already been thwarted twice in its attempt to take the motorcycle world land speed title back to the UK, Triumph will return to the Bonneville Salt Flats​ later this month​ for another crack at besting the 376.363-mph (605.698-km/h)​ record set in 2010.

Dezso Molnar is living his childhood dream, travelling America and the world as a wandering inventor. He’s in the process of starting up a flying car racing league, into which he’ll enter his own flying motorcycle.

Hyundai's Tuscon Fuel Cell has unofficially set the first land speed record for production fuel cell SUVs. The Tucson achieved a top speed of 94.6 mph (152.2 km/h) during runs at the Soggy Dry Lake Bed in Southern California.​

Bloodhound SSC has gone on show in London ahead of its audacious bid to break the 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h) barrier. Gizmag was invited along to take an up-close look at the feat of engineering and raw power on display.

From the world's fastest jet-powered shopping trolley to the world's fastest motorized shed, records were falling left and right last weekend at the final Straightliners Top Speed event of the year in the UK.

The annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge draws cyclists from around the world seeking to push the limits of pedal-powered motion, but it was Canadian Todd Reichart who left the competition in his wake to clock a top speed of 85.71 mph (137.9 km/h).