For anyone who's ever stared at a toy Tonka truck and a nitro R/C car, just wishing there was some way the two could be combined into one smoke-billowing whip-cracking maniacal machine... your fantasies have been realized in life-size as the JCB GT; "the world's fastest backhoe."
Believe it or not, this contraption was actually cooked up in-house by construction equipment purveyor JCB. It's been running around in one form or another for some twenty years, and just set a speed record in Australia hitting 116.82 KPH (about 70 MPH) with Matthew "The Dig" Lucasat driving at the Bathhurst race track.
The JCB GT is powered by a supercharged big block Chevy V8, dialed up to 1,000 horsepower. Two four-barrel Holley carburetors get air in, eight 20" straight pipes let fire-breathing exhaust out. The vehicle is theoretically capable of 120 MPH; apparently it didn't have to charge that hard to get the Guinness title Down Under this time.
As Farming Life explains:
Normally based at JCB's HQ in Staffordshire, UK, the latest JCB GT has a loader and digger end made completely out of aluminium. It went to Australia to perform at car events, including the Deni Ute Muster in Deniliquin, NSW and the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in Bathurst, NSW. With a light weight steel chassis and JCB Fastrac tractor rear axle, the JCB GT was originally designed to do wheelies to thrill crowds at motor racing drag strips in the USA.