**The Fastest Cars on Earth: A History of Land Speed Records**

In 1964, Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons engaged in a high-stakes competition with jet-powered vehicles, pushing the boundaries of speed and innovation. Their quest for the fastest car on earth was just beginning.

On December 11, 1964, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) and FIM (Fédération Internationale des Motocyclistes) finally agreed to recognize vehicles with wheels and any engine as eligible for the outright record by the end of the year. This change came soon after Breedlove's record-breaking feat.

However, changes in technology brought new challenges. Jet engines changed everything in the chase for Speed. Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons went head-to-head with jet-powered beasts of their own design, the Spirit of America and the Green Monster. Breedlove won out in the end, breaking the 600-mile-per-hour barrier for the first time in the second Land Speed Record car.

The Spirit of America Sonic broke this record five years later on October 23, 1970, with Gary Gableich becoming the fastest man on the planet behind the jet-powered wheels of the Blue Flame. This vehicle achieved a speed of 630.388 miles per hour.

As the 1970s arrived, women joined the land speed racing game. Kitty O'Neill set the female land speed record in the Alvord Desert in 1976 when she drove 512 miles per hour in a three-wheel jet car called The SMI Motivator.

Kitty was also a female speed pioneer on water and had an incredible career as a Hollywood stunt woman. In October of 1983, former Scottish fighter pilot Richard Noble set a new record of 634 miles per hour behind the wheel of Brainchild Thrust 2 in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

For nearly 14 years, Noble's record stood unchallenged mainly because he was a project manager on the very car that would claim the new record. Richard Noble's next jet-powered car was named Thrust SSC and driven by another former fighter pilot from the UK named Andy Green.

On October 15, 1997, at Black Rock Desert Nevada, Andy Green drove the Thrust SSC past the speed of sound and set the new land speed record with a speed of 763.035 miles per hour. Despite all the technological progress in the last 25 years, the Thrust SSC is still the first and only car to reach speeds faster than the speed of sound.

The relentless pursuit of a new female-driven land speed record has continued well through the decades. Beloved TV personality and auto fabrication guru Jessie Combs broke Kitty O'Neill's record when she drove the jet-powered North American Eagle 542.783 miles per hour in the Alvord Desert on August 27, 2019.

Unfortunately, on the record-breaking pass, the North American Eagle struck an object and crashed, killing Jesse instantly. Like Kitty O'Neill, Jesse's legendary career included other types of racing and extreme sports where she broke the mold for what women could accomplish in these male-dominated professions.

The project that comes closest to passing the Thrust SSC's record is called Bloodhound. In late 2019, Andy Green hit 628 miles per hour on a lake bed in South Africa with the Bloodhound. However, the team was far from satisfied. Unfortunately, the race for Speed costs a lot of money, and the Bloodhound is no exception.

The car has an estimated cost of $36 million dollars. Bloodhound CEO Stuart Edmondson says that they're still in the hunt for a new investor. "We don't need a billionaire," he says. "We just need a wealthy investor." The EJ200 jet engine can get the Bloodhound to around 650 miles per hour, and an additional 27,000 foot-pounds of thrust from a rocket cluster could theoretically push the car to 1,000 miles per hour.

**The Peterson Museum**

You might be wondering about the car behind me. This is built by a man named Skip Hedrick who set a class record at Bonneville going 347 miles per hour. That's pretty dang impressive!

I want to thank The Peterson for letting us shoot down here. We always love coming to the Peterson Museum! If you've never been here, get your butt down to Los Angeles and come see all the amazing cars they have. Make sure to get the Vault tour as well.

Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. We put videos like this out every dang week. Donut Media forever! See ya!

Thank you.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enevery form of Motorsport is essentially going around the track as fast as possible but some drivers aren't interested in podiums they want to be the fastest person on the planet today we're taking a deep dive into the world of land speed records and man's insatiable desire to go fast this is the incredible history of land speed cars like this one behind me and our Primal desire to push our physical limits will man ever break a thousand miles per hour on land we're going to find out welcome to Donuts all right so understand speed we have to go back to the beginning we're here at the Peterson Automotive Museum with our first car on our list the Ben's patent motor Wagon on a warm day in July 1886 Carl Benz took his first car on its maiden voyage the three-wheeled Carriage looking thing went 10 miles per hour and as we all know Carl wasn't the only person trying to make a motorized vehicle the late 1800s were a time of dramatic engineering progress and it didn't take long for benz's automotive Piers to produce their own Marvels speed quickly became an obsession for car makers around the world near the turn of the century some folks in France decided to stake their claim as having the fastest car on the planet on December 18 1898 a few miles outside of Paris count Gaston de chalus set the first official land speed record when he drove 39.24 miles per hour in a 36 horsepower electric car made by John Doe good for them because the company happened to invent the electric car Gaston's record wouldn't last long however as his rival car builder and Driver Camille janazi broke 65 miles per hour in early 1899. five years later on July 21 1904 another Frenchman by the name of Louis ragoli entered The Fray with his machine the gabron Brit this car was unique in that it had a 13 and a half liter engine that was overboard to 15 liters and had nearly 50 horsepower the big Power bet paid off as ragoli became the first person to break 100 miles per hour in an automobile with a speed of 103.56 it was a true show of heroism by the brave Frenchman the entire internet has been using AI recently figured why don't we show try the sucker out let's give it a shot all right can you write a YouTube ad for Keeps in the style of donut media all right sure I'll give it a shot upbeat rock music begins playing okay hey there fellow car enthusiasts it's your favorite sugar-coated host donut media just like we want to keep our cars running strong we also want to keep our follicles firing on all cylinders pretty good that's where keeps comes in with clinically proven research back treatment shipped right to your door at about half the cost of a traditional Pharmacy hey that's what we say when we write it forget visiting a doctor in person keeps online licensed medical providers will help you select the right treatments for your hair goals and have you looking like a young Paul Newman in no time dude that's sick Paul Newman hot plus keeps has an award-winning all-natural thickening shampoo and conditioner system so if you're tired or shedding more hair than a golden retriever in the summertime head over to keeps.com Donut media and get a special offer today or just click the link below and who knows maybe you'll even impress that cute Gear Head next door with your full head of hair and killer car dolly stay sweet wow that sounds exactly like something we would say despite the French clearly being on a roll Carl Benz never stopped tinkering in 1909 he designed a new speed demon nicknamed the Blitzen bends the car was made to be as narrow as possible to keep wind resistance to a minimum driver Victor Henry broke the 125 mile per hour barrier at the world's first constructed racing circuit Brooklyn's in Surrey England by increasing the bore to 185 millimeters the displacement of the Blitz and benz's nearly 900 pound 4-banger engine was increased from 15.1 to a whopping 21.5 liters imagine that the engine was capable of up to 200 horsepower and the entire vehicle weighed around 3 200 pounds I mean that was a huge accomplishment for the time but it just shows how much technology has advanced like the three-cylinder gr cor Corolla we shot a little while ago that makes more power at a much smaller scale it's incredible in 1924 the official governing body of all things land speed racing decided that in order to officially set the land speed record a driver must blast the machine over a measured mile then return over the same distance the average of both trips is the official time or speed with these new rules in place on July 21st 1925 former British race car driver Sir Malcolm Campbell cracked the 150 mile per hour barrier at the pending Sands in Wales while driving a British engineered car called the Sunbeam I I can't fit in this I think this might affect aerodynamics a little bit on March 29 1927 Henry Seagrave broke the 200 mile per hour mark with the Sunbeam 1000 horsepower this Beast used an engine out of an air code dh4 World War One bomber power came from two 22 and a half liter V12 Aero engines which were positioned in line with the driver's cockpit in between the two engines good aerodynamics are Paramount at this point in the story as demonstrated by the car's astounding length and covered Wheels which help reduce turbulence at high speed speaking of aerodynamics I think to fit inside one of these you use yourself cannot be of enormous length a big thank you to the Peterson for even letting me attempt to sit in this thing my dreams are crushed a lot like my legs and shoulders what's interesting about seagrave's record-breaking Drive is that at least nine miles were needed to reach 200 miles per hour but nowhere in Europe had that kind of racing space at the time so he and the Sunbeam gang journeyed to Daytona Beach in Florida where on March 29 1927 Seagrave blasted across the beach and set a new official record of 203.792 miles per hour Seagrave was also the first to hold World Records on land and by boat simultaneously in 1930 he crashed while trying to set a new record on water Rescuers reached the scene in time for a shattered sea grape to speak his last words have I broken the record you know what he had the Irish Times offered this in his obituary Swift death in a moment of Triumph is probably the end that he would desire Sir Malcolm would go on to set the world land speed record Another nine times but it wasn't until 1935 that the 300 mile per hour barrier was finally broken at the Bonneville Salt Flats the car nicknamed Bluebird had a 36.7 liter V12 Rolls-Royce R supercharged engine during test runs it was clear that the 28-foot Bluebird had more than enough power to break the record tricky part was keeping the nose of the vehicle on the ground to get enough traction Advanced aerodynamics that wouldn't look too out of place at the Salt Flats today helped Campbell reach speeds Carl Benz could have never imagined just 50 years prior the 1960s was when things got really interesting land speed racing Engineers around the world began adapting jet engines to their vehicles this brought about plenty of speed and plenty of controversy it took almost 30 years for the 400 mile per hour barrier to be broken when Craig Breedlove drove the first purely jet engine powered car named Spirit of America 407.447 miles per hour in September 1963. the problem was that the spirit had a b-45 bomber engine and only had three wheels unfortunately Craig was a little bit ahead of his time his new record was not recognized because the land speed regulations at the time still required the car to have four wheels and the power had to be supplied to the wheels not via jet power the official land speed record at the time actually belonged to Sir Malcolm Campbell's son Donald Campbell who drove the bluebird Proteus cn7 to an official speed of a 403.1 mile per hour in a dried out lake bed in Australia the bluebird cn7 is important because it was the last wheel driven record-breaking car when it comes to outright speed records unfortunately for Campbell though LSR rule changes came soon after his record-breaking feat and on December 11 1964 the FIA and fim finally agreed to recognize that any vehicle running on Wheels and with any engine was eligible to claim the outright record by the end of the year his record had been broken five times that's that sucks I'm sorry man jet engines changed everything in the chase for Speed Craig Breedlove and art arfons went head-to-head with jet-powered beasts of their own design the spirit of America and the green monster Breedlove won out in the end though breaking the 600 mile per hour barrier for the first time in the second land speed race car the spirit of America Sonic won five years later on October 23 1970 Gary gableich became the fastest man on the planet behind the jet-powered wheels of the blue flame which achieved a speed of 630.388 miles per hour as the 70s arrived women joined the land speed racing game Kitty O'Neill set the female land speed record in the Alvord desert in 1976 when she drove 512 miles per hour in a three-wheel jet car called The SMI motivator Kitty was also a female speed Pioneer on water and had an incredible career as a Hollywood stunt woman in October of 1983 former Scottish fighter pilot Richard Noble set a new record of 634 miles per hour behind the wheel of brainchild thrust 2 in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for us 2 had a Rolls-Royce rb146 jet turbine engine from a Cold War era fighter plane that delivered 72 kilonewtons of thrust and 30 000 horsepower Noble's record stood for nearly 14 years mainly because he was a project manager on the very car that would claim the new record Richard Noble's next jet-powered car was named Thrust SSC on October 15 1997 at BlackRock desert Nevada another former fighter pilot from the UK named Andy green drove the Thrust SSC past the speed of sound and set the new land speed record with a speed of 763.035 miles per hour despite all the technological progress in the last 25 years the Thrust SSC is still the first and only car to reach speeds faster than the speed of sound the Relentless pursuit of a new female-driven land speed record has continued well through the decades as well beloved TV personality and auto fabrication Guru Jessie Combs bro broke Kitty O'Neill's record when she drove the jet-powered North American Eagle 542.783 miles per hour in the Alvord desert on August 27 2019. unfortunately on the record-breaking pass the North American Eagle struck an object and crashed killing Jesse instantly like Kitty O'Neill Jesse's legendary career included other types of racing and extreme sports where she broke the mold for what women could accomplish in these male-dominated professions she used an icon and we all miss her dearly the project that comes closest to passing the thrust ssc's record is called Bloodhound back in late 2019 she and her pilot Andy green yeah that same Andy green hit 628 miles per hour on a lake bed in South Africa but Andy and the team were far from satisfied unfortunately the race for Speed cost a lot of money and the Bloodhound is no exception with an estimated cost of 36 million dollars Bloodhound CEO Stuart Edmondson says that they're still in the hunt for a new investor quote we don't need a billionaire we just need a wealthy investor the ej200 jet engine can get the Bloodhound to around 650 miles per hour the car then gets an additional 27 000 foot-pounds of thrust from a rocket cluster which could theoretically push the car to 1 000 miles per hour thank you all right so you might be wondering about this car behind me this is built by a man named skip Hedrick who set a class record at Bonneville going 347 miles per hour pretty dang impressive I want to thank the Peterson for letting us shoot down here we always love coming to the Peterson Museum if you've never been here get your butt down to Los Angeles come here look at all the amazing cars they have make sure to get the Vault tour as well hit that subscribe button if you haven't already we put videos like this out every dang week donut media forever see ya thank youevery form of Motorsport is essentially going around the track as fast as possible but some drivers aren't interested in podiums they want to be the fastest person on the planet today we're taking a deep dive into the world of land speed records and man's insatiable desire to go fast this is the incredible history of land speed cars like this one behind me and our Primal desire to push our physical limits will man ever break a thousand miles per hour on land we're going to find out welcome to Donuts all right so understand speed we have to go back to the beginning we're here at the Peterson Automotive Museum with our first car on our list the Ben's patent motor Wagon on a warm day in July 1886 Carl Benz took his first car on its maiden voyage the three-wheeled Carriage looking thing went 10 miles per hour and as we all know Carl wasn't the only person trying to make a motorized vehicle the late 1800s were a time of dramatic engineering progress and it didn't take long for benz's automotive Piers to produce their own Marvels speed quickly became an obsession for car makers around the world near the turn of the century some folks in France decided to stake their claim as having the fastest car on the planet on December 18 1898 a few miles outside of Paris count Gaston de chalus set the first official land speed record when he drove 39.24 miles per hour in a 36 horsepower electric car made by John Doe good for them because the company happened to invent the electric car Gaston's record wouldn't last long however as his rival car builder and Driver Camille janazi broke 65 miles per hour in early 1899. five years later on July 21 1904 another Frenchman by the name of Louis ragoli entered The Fray with his machine the gabron Brit this car was unique in that it had a 13 and a half liter engine that was overboard to 15 liters and had nearly 50 horsepower the big Power bet paid off as ragoli became the first person to break 100 miles per hour in an automobile with a speed of 103.56 it was a true show of heroism by the brave Frenchman the entire internet has been using AI recently figured why don't we show try the sucker out let's give it a shot all right can you write a YouTube ad for Keeps in the style of donut media all right sure I'll give it a shot upbeat rock music begins playing okay hey there fellow car enthusiasts it's your favorite sugar-coated host donut media just like we want to keep our cars running strong we also want to keep our follicles firing on all cylinders pretty good that's where keeps comes in with clinically proven research back treatment shipped right to your door at about half the cost of a traditional Pharmacy hey that's what we say when we write it forget visiting a doctor in person keeps online licensed medical providers will help you select the right treatments for your hair goals and have you looking like a young Paul Newman in no time dude that's sick Paul Newman hot plus keeps has an award-winning all-natural thickening shampoo and conditioner system so if you're tired or shedding more hair than a golden retriever in the summertime head over to keeps.com Donut media and get a special offer today or just click the link below and who knows maybe you'll even impress that cute Gear Head next door with your full head of hair and killer car dolly stay sweet wow that sounds exactly like something we would say despite the French clearly being on a roll Carl Benz never stopped tinkering in 1909 he designed a new speed demon nicknamed the Blitzen bends the car was made to be as narrow as possible to keep wind resistance to a minimum driver Victor Henry broke the 125 mile per hour barrier at the world's first constructed racing circuit Brooklyn's in Surrey England by increasing the bore to 185 millimeters the displacement of the Blitz and benz's nearly 900 pound 4-banger engine was increased from 15.1 to a whopping 21.5 liters imagine that the engine was capable of up to 200 horsepower and the entire vehicle weighed around 3 200 pounds I mean that was a huge accomplishment for the time but it just shows how much technology has advanced like the three-cylinder gr cor Corolla we shot a little while ago that makes more power at a much smaller scale it's incredible in 1924 the official governing body of all things land speed racing decided that in order to officially set the land speed record a driver must blast the machine over a measured mile then return over the same distance the average of both trips is the official time or speed with these new rules in place on July 21st 1925 former British race car driver Sir Malcolm Campbell cracked the 150 mile per hour barrier at the pending Sands in Wales while driving a British engineered car called the Sunbeam I I can't fit in this I think this might affect aerodynamics a little bit on March 29 1927 Henry Seagrave broke the 200 mile per hour mark with the Sunbeam 1000 horsepower this Beast used an engine out of an air code dh4 World War One bomber power came from two 22 and a half liter V12 Aero engines which were positioned in line with the driver's cockpit in between the two engines good aerodynamics are Paramount at this point in the story as demonstrated by the car's astounding length and covered Wheels which help reduce turbulence at high speed speaking of aerodynamics I think to fit inside one of these you use yourself cannot be of enormous length a big thank you to the Peterson for even letting me attempt to sit in this thing my dreams are crushed a lot like my legs and shoulders what's interesting about seagrave's record-breaking Drive is that at least nine miles were needed to reach 200 miles per hour but nowhere in Europe had that kind of racing space at the time so he and the Sunbeam gang journeyed to Daytona Beach in Florida where on March 29 1927 Seagrave blasted across the beach and set a new official record of 203.792 miles per hour Seagrave was also the first to hold World Records on land and by boat simultaneously in 1930 he crashed while trying to set a new record on water Rescuers reached the scene in time for a shattered sea grape to speak his last words have I broken the record you know what he had the Irish Times offered this in his obituary Swift death in a moment of Triumph is probably the end that he would desire Sir Malcolm would go on to set the world land speed record Another nine times but it wasn't until 1935 that the 300 mile per hour barrier was finally broken at the Bonneville Salt Flats the car nicknamed Bluebird had a 36.7 liter V12 Rolls-Royce R supercharged engine during test runs it was clear that the 28-foot Bluebird had more than enough power to break the record tricky part was keeping the nose of the vehicle on the ground to get enough traction Advanced aerodynamics that wouldn't look too out of place at the Salt Flats today helped Campbell reach speeds Carl Benz could have never imagined just 50 years prior the 1960s was when things got really interesting land speed racing Engineers around the world began adapting jet engines to their vehicles this brought about plenty of speed and plenty of controversy it took almost 30 years for the 400 mile per hour barrier to be broken when Craig Breedlove drove the first purely jet engine powered car named Spirit of America 407.447 miles per hour in September 1963. the problem was that the spirit had a b-45 bomber engine and only had three wheels unfortunately Craig was a little bit ahead of his time his new record was not recognized because the land speed regulations at the time still required the car to have four wheels and the power had to be supplied to the wheels not via jet power the official land speed record at the time actually belonged to Sir Malcolm Campbell's son Donald Campbell who drove the bluebird Proteus cn7 to an official speed of a 403.1 mile per hour in a dried out lake bed in Australia the bluebird cn7 is important because it was the last wheel driven record-breaking car when it comes to outright speed records unfortunately for Campbell though LSR rule changes came soon after his record-breaking feat and on December 11 1964 the FIA and fim finally agreed to recognize that any vehicle running on Wheels and with any engine was eligible to claim the outright record by the end of the year his record had been broken five times that's that sucks I'm sorry man jet engines changed everything in the chase for Speed Craig Breedlove and art arfons went head-to-head with jet-powered beasts of their own design the spirit of America and the green monster Breedlove won out in the end though breaking the 600 mile per hour barrier for the first time in the second land speed race car the spirit of America Sonic won five years later on October 23 1970 Gary gableich became the fastest man on the planet behind the jet-powered wheels of the blue flame which achieved a speed of 630.388 miles per hour as the 70s arrived women joined the land speed racing game Kitty O'Neill set the female land speed record in the Alvord desert in 1976 when she drove 512 miles per hour in a three-wheel jet car called The SMI motivator Kitty was also a female speed Pioneer on water and had an incredible career as a Hollywood stunt woman in October of 1983 former Scottish fighter pilot Richard Noble set a new record of 634 miles per hour behind the wheel of brainchild thrust 2 in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for us 2 had a Rolls-Royce rb146 jet turbine engine from a Cold War era fighter plane that delivered 72 kilonewtons of thrust and 30 000 horsepower Noble's record stood for nearly 14 years mainly because he was a project manager on the very car that would claim the new record Richard Noble's next jet-powered car was named Thrust SSC on October 15 1997 at BlackRock desert Nevada another former fighter pilot from the UK named Andy green drove the Thrust SSC past the speed of sound and set the new land speed record with a speed of 763.035 miles per hour despite all the technological progress in the last 25 years the Thrust SSC is still the first and only car to reach speeds faster than the speed of sound the Relentless pursuit of a new female-driven land speed record has continued well through the decades as well beloved TV personality and auto fabrication Guru Jessie Combs bro broke Kitty O'Neill's record when she drove the jet-powered North American Eagle 542.783 miles per hour in the Alvord desert on August 27 2019. unfortunately on the record-breaking pass the North American Eagle struck an object and crashed killing Jesse instantly like Kitty O'Neill Jesse's legendary career included other types of racing and extreme sports where she broke the mold for what women could accomplish in these male-dominated professions she used an icon and we all miss her dearly the project that comes closest to passing the thrust ssc's record is called Bloodhound back in late 2019 she and her pilot Andy green yeah that same Andy green hit 628 miles per hour on a lake bed in South Africa but Andy and the team were far from satisfied unfortunately the race for Speed cost a lot of money and the Bloodhound is no exception with an estimated cost of 36 million dollars Bloodhound CEO Stuart Edmondson says that they're still in the hunt for a new investor quote we don't need a billionaire we just need a wealthy investor the ej200 jet engine can get the Bloodhound to around 650 miles per hour the car then gets an additional 27 000 foot-pounds of thrust from a rocket cluster which could theoretically push the car to 1 000 miles per hour thank you all right so you might be wondering about this car behind me this is built by a man named skip Hedrick who set a class record at Bonneville going 347 miles per hour pretty dang impressive I want to thank the Peterson for letting us shoot down here we always love coming to the Peterson Museum if you've never been here get your butt down to Los Angeles come here look at all the amazing cars they have make sure to get the Vault tour as well hit that subscribe button if you haven't already we put videos like this out every dang week donut media forever see ya thank you