Driver Who Broke Sound Barrier Sets New Record

UPDATE Aug 11, 2026 6:59 PM CDT

The only person to break the sound barrier in a car earned another world record Tuesday. British driver Andy Green reached 406.320 mph in a car powered by two hydrogen internal combustion engines with a combined 1,600 horsepower, setting the record for that vehicle category, according to the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the international governing body of motor sports. The 64-year-old retired Royal Air Force pilot rocketed across the crystalline crust at Utah's famous Bonneville Salt Flats in a 32-foot car engineered by British construction equipment manufacturer JCB, the AP reports. The engines, adapted from those used in the company's heavy machinery, mix pressurized hydrogen gas with air and ignite it to create bursts of power.

• Green easily topped the previous hydrogen combustion world record of 185.5 mph, as well as the land-speed record for a diesel-powered car he set in 2006—350.092 mph. But Tuesday's feat didn't come close to approaching the overall land-speed record of 763.035 mph, which Green set with jet power in 1997.

Aug 10, 2026 6:31 AM CDT

Green will be driving the 32-foot JCB Hydromax, the brainchild of British construction equipment manufacturer JCB. The car is bright yellow, long, and slim, resembling a pencil. It's powered by two hydrogen internal combustion engines with a combined 1,600 horsepower. They mix pressurized hydrogen gas with air and ignite it to create bursts of power. In targeting the diesel-powered record, Green also hopes to easily clear the world land speed records for hydrogen internal combustion engines (185.5mph) and electric vehicles (341.3mph). Green hit a new top speed of 368.347mph in practice last week, but to officially earn the hydrogen record, he'll have to do it Tuesday in front of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. "What the peak speed is, I can't say. We just don't know," he said. "Part of the adventure here is we're going to find out."

One thing Tuesday's attempt will assuredly not do is approach the supersonic speeds Green reached with jet power three decades ago. Green had already been flying supersonic military aircraft when he spotted a newspaper ad that read: "Wanted: High-speed driver to break the sound barrier," according to Guinness World Records.

• In 1997, he traveled faster than the speed of sound and set the outright land speed record—763.035mph—in a car powered by twin jet engines. His runs in Nevada's Black Rock Desert produced sonic booms that shook the nearby town of Gerlach. Now 64 years old, Green said he thought he was done racing but came out of retirement when JCB approached him with plans for the new car. The company has invested more than $134 million into hydrogen-powered engines that it says emit no carbon dioxide.
• "If you're serious about emissions, you have to be serious about hydrogen, and a land speed project is the perfect way to prove it," JCB Chair Anthony Bamford said at the car's unveiling in May. But hydrogen is only as clean as its source, and the vast majority is currently produced from fossil fuels. JCB has signed a deal to buy green hydrogen, which is created using renewable energy but makes up a tiny fraction of global hydrogen production.