10 Cool Car Records That Make No Sense At All

In the Stone Age, our ancestors are said to have lived in caves. But we’ll bet on our bottom dollar they had some records back then. Like who can draw the biggest rock painting in the cave? And, who gathered the most berries in one hour? Oh, and that time when Free-Wind Freddie set a new speed record running from a saber-toothed tiger.

Yep, humans (and cave folks) will always indulge in some form of competition. Car enthusiasts are no different. Here are some of the coolest car-related records in the world, which don’t necessarily make much sense at all.

In 1997, Andy Green set the world speed record in Thrust SCC, reaching 763 mph. Cool. But also a bit same-old, same-old. This list focuses on the more left-of-field world records, most of which hardly make little sense.

10 Fastest Fire Truck In The World

Speed: 409.3 mph

In 1998, Shannen Seydel from Florida set a new speed record of 409.3 mph in a red 1940 Ford fire truck. The truck, powered by two Rolls-Royce Bristol Viper jet engines producing 12,000 lb of thrust, set the record in Ontario, Canada.

The Hawaiian Eagle’s Viper jet engines are more likely found in executive business jets and military jet trainers. The Ford fire truck took three years to build, and apparently lives a semi-retired life at the Hawaiian Fire Department. It still comes out to play now and again for benefit and fund-raising events across the USA and Canada.

9 Longest Wheelie In A Car

Distance: 2,504 feet

‘Nitro’ Mike Kunz has been racing boats, snowmobiles, motorcycles and, more recently, indulged in drag racing. That’s how Kunz landed up driving a dragster that may resemble a Chrysler PT Cruiser, but is anything but a PT Cruiser under the skin.

The PT, built specifically for wheelies, runs a supercharged 7.3-liter Chrysler V8 that makes around 1,300 hp. The car has a custom, damped wheelie bar at the back to prevent it from flipping backwards. Another trick is the footwell, which is cut open, so Mike can see where he is going. He’s not hanging around when the Cruiser is on two wheels either… he’ll easily do 100 mph through the quarter mile, on the back wheels.

In 2012, Mike set a new Guinness World Record for longest wheelie in a car, recording a distance of just over 2,500 feet.

8 Fastest RC Car On Grass

Speed: 101 mph

When monster truck builder, RC car fan and YouTuber Kevin Talbot from the UK decided to break the speed record for an off-road RC car, he went all in by cutting a perfectly fine, high-end off-road RC truck in half. Then he took a snowboard, and added the two parts of the RC car to the ends of the snowboard.

The result is a twin-motor, four-wheel-drive RC off-road truck. He constructed a makeshift body for his car, modified the fancy suspension to ride higher, and experimented for months to find the ideal tire combination for his contraption, which was soon nicknamed “The Sausage”. After initially reaching 45 mph, some major power upgrades and refinements saw Talbot reach 101 mph with his home-built contraption.

7 The Longest Car

Length: 100 feet

Former truck driver Jay Ohrberg had a dream. An American dream, to be sure. The man behind iconic Hollywood cars like Knight Rider’sTrans Am called KITT, the Ectomobile from the Ghostbusters movies, and many more. Ohrberg went just a little bit OTT with his limousine called “American Dream.” At 100 feet long, Guinness World Records say it is the longest car in the world.

Based on a 1970 Cadillac Eldorado (with six Eldorado’s used in the build), the limo has 26 wheels, a helipad, a Jacuzzi, a diving board, a putting green and… it can transport up to 75 people! In 2012, the limo was found abandoned and in a sorry state behind a warehouse in New Jersey. Michael Manning bought the car, and by 2022, with the limo now based in Florida, the American Dream was beautifully restored, and the limo is now back in amazing shape.

6 Fastest Speed For A Car Driving In A Video Game

Speed: 423 mph

In 2007, YouTube user “Moretti” posted a video of a Ford GT reaching 423 mph in the driving game Need for Speed, Carbon.

In the Need for Speed format, players can modify the cars in their ‘garage’ to their heart’s content, obviously with a fair dose of unrealistic performance parameters thrown in for good measure. The Ford GT that set this “speed” obviously had all the upgrades in the book, including ‘infinite nitrous’, which provides unlimited nitrous oxide to the engine.

5 Longest drift

Distance: 232 miles

In 2017, BMW racing driver and advanced driving instructor Johan Schwartz, driving a BMW M5 (F90) with the M xDrive all-wheel-drive system, set a new drifting distance record, covering 232 miles.

The 600-hp BMW M all-wheel drive system has a function where, by the push of a button, all the power is sent to the rear wheels only, enabling it to drift. A major contributing factor was the V8 engine’s torque delivery… 552 lb-ft available from as low as 1,800 r/min, all the way to 5,000 r/min.

The BMW M5 was refueled during the record attempt. This required a second M5, drifting next to the record car, with a brave man hanging out the rear window with a fuel nozzle, connecting it to a special fuel filler on Schwartz’s car.

Why drift for 232 miles? Because they can.

4 Longest Time Kissing A Car To Win It

Time: 50 hours

If there was a record attempt for the longest time spent kissing, say, Brad Pitt or Zendaya, we can imagine queues stretching into thousands of folks, eager to attempt smashing a record. But kissing a… car? You bet. In 2017, Dilini Jayasuriya from Austin, Texas, kissed a Kia Optima LX for 50 straight hours.

An obvious Kia fan, Dilini competed against 19 other folks, and the last person to have their lips on the car was declared the winner. She was the last woman standing and kissing the car, and won the Optima in the process. Gives new meaning to the term ‘sealed with a kiss.’

3 Most Donuts Made In One Minute

Quantity: 19

In 2017, a British man called Sir Chris Hoy, who happens to be an Olympic gold medalist and 11-time world cycling champion, set a new world record for the number of donuts in one minute, recording 19 full rotations in a Caterham Seven 620R.

The 620R weighs just 1,100 lbs and is powered by a supercharged 2.0-liter Ford Duratec engine, producing 310 hp. Should be pretty good in a straight line too.

2 Fastest Lap For A Car Driven On Two Wheels On The Nürburgring

Lap time: 45:59.11

Ah, The Green Hell. The legendary German racetrack where car companies hone their performance cars and set new time records around the historic circuit.

The perfect venue then, decided Chinese stunt driver Han Yue, to set a new world record for the fastest lap, driven on two wheels, in a Mini Cooper S. Amazingly, even with all the 73 corners, the legendary uphill and downhill sections, and four seasons in one day, Yue completed the entire 12.9-mile circuit on two wheels.

Does it make much sense? Probably not. But it sure is a heck of a feat.

1 Fastest Car In Space (And Everywhere Else)

Speed: 24,942 mph

In 2018, Elon Musk sent his personal Tesla Roadster to space, using the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The car eventually ended up in a heliocentric orbit around the sun, theoretically taking the car all the way to Mars and an asteroid belt, then back to the inner Solar System in the future.

At the point where the rocket’s booster engine cut off, the car launched into orbit at an estimated 24,942 mph – which makes it the fastest speed a car has ever traveled in space. Or any place, for that matter. As you’d expect from Musk, there were a few left-of-field surprises… the “driver” is a mannequin in a full space suit called Starman, with a guide from Douglas Adam’s novel Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy going along for the ride.

What happened to Starman? The Roadster, with Starman on board, is currently cruising about 230-million miles from Earth, in the constellation of Capricornus.