JCB in the Car business?

I don't think they are associated with the digger people

From their web site

The history of JCB Group

JCB Group started out as JCB Medway Ltd, a family-owned business that established itself as a reputable Volkswagen outlet in the south of England. It has won awards, such as Volkswagen?s accolade for the No.1 South East vehicle retailer, as well as being recognised by Motability Operations Ltd for its work alongside the Motability Scheme.

JCB Group is a Kent-based car dealer group that specialises in the sale of new and used vehicles, including cars, vans and motorhomes. The company holds Honda, SEAT, Volkswagen, Skoda and Renault franchises with sites in both Kent and West Sussex.

Companies House says that they a private limited company incoperated in

That makes sense (that is my area), although I can't place the company- then I've never own a VW.

Thank you, (minor) mystery solved.

As an aside, JCB made the Dieselmax, a twin diesel-engined missile, to break the diesel land speed record. And Green, of Thrust2 fame, drove it, I believe.

More info.:

Interesting- thank you- I assume that is their 'engine branch'. As it happens, I've a friend who works on engine control systems and I'm pretty sure it is JCB he works for. I will (probably) see him this weekend, I will ask him.

AFAIK, he isn't involved in anything 'exotic'- although he hasn't gone into detail beyond explaining he is an engineer etc.

Diesels aren't associated with speed but I recall Clarkson (or one of his cronies) test driving a diesel sports / supercar. I think it was one of the German companies- Mercedes I suspect.

It will be interesting to see (and I am watching with interest) how the problem of vehicles in the Transit/Ducato class will develop in coming years with the anti-diesel policies. Being a motorhome owner, it is a concern- especially as we hope to buy at least one more, may be two, before admitting may be calling time. (In series, not at the same time, having several motorhomes would be OTT!)

Without checking the article, the Dieselmax was quite a few years ago now, so any recent work may well be later than when it was performing.

The engine "tuning" was contacted out to Ricardo. (Who I think did much of the work on the 444 engine in the first place.)

I'm surprised by how light it was 2800 Kg. Many of the fastest cars on salt are ballasted up to 5 tons. Aero down force wastes power so they use ballast for traction and at best the coefficient of traction (COT) is about 0.5. Surface is like an old broken runway with disjointed slabs of salt. On tarmac you have around COT 1 on typical radial road tyres while drag racers use "glue" made from sticky rubber to get COT over 4 off the line. Exceptional traction and all the weight on the driven rear wheels is why drag racers can hit they speeds they do in 1000 ft, while poor traction and high weight means a salt racer takes 5 miles. Top fuel don't run 1/4 mile anymore as they were getting insanely quick with high terminal speeds.

They run a 1000ft. I'm not sure that it was the terminal speed that resulted in a reduction from 1/4 mile (1,320 ft) to 1000 ft but more to do with highly stressed engines detonating in the final few hundred feet - a safety issue.

Typical Top fuel for a good run

The 250 mph figure is measured at the 1/8 mile mark so the vehicle has reached 5/6th of its final speed half way up the track.

I did witness the Sammy Miller run of 0 to 385 mph in 3.58 seconds (quarter mile) however this was in a rocket powered car.

Me wonders.

Is it compulsory in a land speed attempt for the vehicle to actually touch the ground while doing so?

Can't it hover slightly, or a drag a token piece of string? Who sets the rules on these things?

FIA set the rules. SCTA set the rules for Bonneville but cars can run "time only" for FIA runs.

All wheels have to touch the ground. A car has to have at least 4 wheels. No rule on vehicle track are so some have run with rear wheels very close set and some are inline.