Volvo’s claim to fame is being known as one of the safest cars to drive. Safe can sometimes be boring and / or slow. But they have taken the challenge of beating two land speed records in one run with a truck.
The current land speed record for a truck at a distance of 1,000 meters (1 km) is 21.59 seconds before this attempt. The driver of the truck is Boije Ovebrink who is a former champion truck racer and his truck was called the Mean Green and the record was set in 2012.
Volvo, along with Boije Ovebrink, set out to break the current world record with a new truck called Iron Knight. The truck is powered by a 12.8-liter six-cylinder engine capable of producing a colossal 2,367bhp and 4,425 lb-ft of torque. The truck weighs 4,500kgs with a power to weight ratio roughly the same as that in the McLaren P1. The massive engine is paired with the I-shift dual clutch transmission. The land speed record attempt was meant to showcase the transmission. Iron Knight was built specifically for the task of breaking the land speed record.
The land speed record attempt was done with two runs within the span of one hour. The average of the two runs counts as the official time of the attempt. The average for the two runs was 21.29 with a speed of 105mph which was enough to break the land speed record for the distance of one kilometer.
In addition to breaking the one-kilometer record, Iron Knight also broke the 500m distance record with a time of 13.71 seconds with an average speed of 81mph. This truck should be able to cover a quarter mile drag race in 10 seconds.
This is the third truck that Boije Ovebrink has driven to beat land speed records. The other two are Mean Green and Wild Viking. The I-Shift dual clutch transmission comes as standard in Volvo’s FH trucks. Everything else in the Iron Knight such as carbon fibre panels and racing seats sadly does not come as standard or even as options.
Photos via Top Gear
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