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Salt Lake City, Utah - British pilot Andy Green has extended the land speed record for a diesel car by an astounding 160km/h on Utah's Bonneville salt flats.
Green drove a vehicle powered by two 4.4-litre, four-cylinder turbodiesel engines - as used in JCB ditch-diggers and similar and each generating 560kW and 1500Nm of torque.
Together, the engines in the Dieselmax are twice as powerful as a Formula 1 engine but use only half the fuel.
Green's two runs averaged 528.986km/h. The previous diesel record was 379.331km/h set by Virgil Snyder on the Bonneville flats in 1973.
"What we've achieved today is absolutely astonishing," Green said by phone from the dry salt lake that's about 145km west of Salt Lake City on Tuesday.
The record attempt was observed by the FIA, motorsport's international governing body. FIA rules require two passes within an hour to calculate an average speed.
FIA representative David Petrali said Green's first run reached 521.742km/h and his return run 533.383km/h. The FIA board will meet in September to ratify the record claim.
Green said he only used about 900kW of the engines' potential - anything more could have been dangerous. The car's tyres were only rated for 560km/h although Green's crew said it was capable of 640km/h. The vehicle has six gears but only five were used on the record runs.
Green said he would be at the Bonneville salt flats for the rest of the week and might even try to break his own record.
"We have another 224kW available to us if we need it and if we can get the car to cope with it," he said. "Having a perfect engine is only part of it. Everything has to work together."
The car Green drove was built in three months - and completely rebuilt three days before the record attempts after testing at Speed Week when it reached 495.6 km/h. That run was not observed by the FIA.
Green said: "This car didn't exist three months ago. That's remarkable."
- Green also set the first supersonic world land speed record in 1997 with the Thrust SSC jet car - 1227.723km/h. - Sapa-AP