Coffee-powered car breaks Guinness speed record

by Steven Mostyn - Sep 28 2011, 10:20

Although using coffee as an alternative fuel of the future isn’t ever likely to happen, there’s no denying the novelty value associated with the following piece of “and finally” news coverage.

A team of scientists and volunteers from County Durham in the UK have created a bean-guzzling engine, installed it into a modified old Rover SD1, and broken the existing Guinness World Record for the top speed of a car powered by organic waste.

The engine in question, which also burnt woodchips to help achieve a speed of 65.5mph (approx. 105kph), was developed based on a design first used during the BBC’s educational television show Bang Goes the Theory back in 2010.

The previous speed record was held by the woodchip-powered Beaver XR7, which was created in the United States and was able to reach a top speed of around 45kph.

The UK team now has two Guinness records safely secured under its (seat)belt as the original Volkswagen Scirocco coffee car driven on Bang Goes the Theory holds the record for the longest distance ever driven by a coffee-powered car.

That record currently stands at 210 miles (approx. 337km).

If you’d like to take a closer look at the (probably quite pungent) caffeine rocket, it will be on display at the Bang Live event in Manchester, England, between October 22 and October 23.

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