JCB Targets New Diesel Land Speed Record

JCB is aiming to set a new land speed record for diesel
vehicles with a super sleek streamliner car to be driven by Wing Commander Andy
Green, the fastest man on Earth. The record attempt will take place on the
famous Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah during August 2006.

Powering the stunning, 9-m long JCB DIESELMAX car are two
JCB444 diesel engines, developed to produce 750 bhp each, five times the power
needed to drive a JCB backhoe loader, and now the world’s most powerful diesel
engine per liter.

Leading the project, codenamed H1, is Dr. Tim Leverton, JCB
group engineering director, who put together a world-class design team with
extensive experience of Formula One, Le Mans, advanced diesel technology and
transmissions.

Mentor to the project has been Richard Noble, the former land
speed record holder, who encouraged the JCB team to aim for 300 mph; the
existing record stands at 235.756 mph.

Sir Anthony Bamford, chairman of privately owned JCB, is very
clear why he wanted to build a JCB record-breaker: “I am passionate about the
importance of engineering excellence to Britain and I see using the JCB engine
for this record attempt as a fantastic way of showcasing what British engineers
can do. The JCB444 has been acknowledged as a remarkable piece of engineering,
and this program to build the world’s fastest diesel-powered automobile is
precisely the sort of technical challenge that we should rise to.”

Green, who set the first-ever supersonic world land speed
record at 763.035 mph in ThrustSSC on the Black Rock Desert on Oct. 15, 1997, is
thrilled to have been given another opportunity to enter the record books.

“We will be following in the tradition of British record
breakers by running at the sport’s spiritual home, the remarkable Bonneville
Salt Flats,” he said. “I am really looking forward to driving another British
entry in the 300 mph Club and a diesel-engined, wheel-driven one at that.”

JCB is the world’s fifth largest manufacturer of construction
equipment and has 17 plants on four continents — 10 in the United Kingdom, three
in India and others in the United States, Brazil, China and Germany. JCB employs
more than 6,300 people. In 2005, JCB celebrated its 60th anniversary; the
company is
family run and privately owned.

The current diesel-powered land speed record stands at 235.756
mph by Virgil W. Snyder and the Thermo King Streamliner and dates back to August
1973.