---
title: JCB Reaches 208mph on Hydrogen Power and Sets Its Sights on Bonneville
description: British engineering giant JCB has completed UK testing of its hydrogen-powered Hydromax car, driven by the fastest man on earth. In August, it goes to Utah t...
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-06-25T12:30:00.000Z
updated: 2026-06-25T12:37:17.231Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/jcb-reaches-208mph-on-hydrogen-power-and-sets-its-sights-on-bonneville
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/jcb-hydromax-with-driver-wing-commander-andy-green-obe-at-raf-wittering (1).webp
categories: Science & Tech
content_type: News
region: United Kingdom
publication: Sovereign Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

Yesterday morning, at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire, a 32-foot car powered by two hydrogen-burning digger engines crossed 208 miles per hour and kept going. The driver, Wing Commander Andy Green OBE, is the only human being to have broken the sound barrier on land. The car belongs to a British company that makes excavators. And in August, on the salt flats of Utah, they intend to rewrite the record books.

The JCB Hydromax has just completed its UK testing programme. The numbers are significant: the car reached 208mph, up from the 177mph recorded earlier in the shakedown runs at the same site. But the speed is only part of what was learned. Over the course of the programme, the team refined the hydrogen refuelling process, rehearsed pit stops and tyre changes, stress-tested the powertrain, the four-wheel drive transmission, the clutch, the brakes, the cooling systems and the bespoke control electronics — and ran the whole machine at pace in conditions that no computer simulation can replicate. Every run on British tarmac is one fewer unknown waiting on the salt.

'The UK testing programme has given us everything we had hoped for and more,' said JCB Chairman Anthony Bamford, Lord Bamford, who has driven this project from its inception. 'We have a car that runs, a crew that knows it inside out and a wealth of real-world data that no amount of theory could ever provide. The team has done a magnificent job and our focus now turns entirely to the Salt Flats and a new world hydrogen land speed record.'

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