When people think of bumper cars, they usually don’t think of them as being especially fast. As it turns out, though, a little elbow grease and a world-class driver can make the carnival classics look right at home on a straightaway.
A video posted to YouTube on Thursday by Colin Furze showcases a modified bumper car Furze recently put together. In hopes of breaking the world record for the fastest bumper car, he fitted the car with a 600-cubic-centimeter Honda motorbike engine. In order to reach his goal, however, he still needed one more thing: the Stig.
“Stig’s at his happiest when he’s making the slow, fast,” Furze told Top Gear. “So what better way to celebrate the new series of ‘Top Gear’ than by taking a rusty old bumper car and converting it into the ultimate fairground speed machine.”
Thankfully, the bumper cars seen at your country fair don’t have this much horsepower.
The stunt, which was performed at Bentwaters Airfield in Suffolk, England, was a huge success. The vehicle needed to be driven in two directions, to account for both wind resistance and assistance. And with an average speed of 100.336 mph, the bumper car now holds the Guiness World Record.
