Volvo Trucks break two world records with The Iron Knight, a 2400hp behemoth capable of 276kph.
Viral videos from Volvo Trucks are hardly a rarity: the efficiency of its emergency braking system still leaves us baffled, a Volvo FH truck raced a 1350hp Koenigsegg One:1 around the Knutstorp race circuit in Sweden (yes, really), and we can’t help but wonder how Jean-Claude Van Damme’s grapefruits are after his ‘Epic Split’.
Unsurprisingly the company has come up trumps again with its latest video, in which it breaks not one but two world records.
The star of the show – alongside stunt driver and 1994 European Truck Racing Champion Boije Ovebrink – is The Iron Knight, which now holds the official record for 500 and 1000m sprints, hitting 131.29kph in 13.71 seconds for the former, and 169kph in 21.29 seconds for the latter.
[Not a valid template]Power then is a must. Lots, and lots, of power. 2400hp-worth of it to be precise, plus 6000Nm (4425lb ft) of torque from the Iron Knight’s ‘significantly modified’, mid-mounted D13 engine. Boasting the same power as four Lamborghini Huracán LP580-2s, the hand-built Iron Knight nailed 276kph during testing, a sphincter-quivering prospect in a vehicle weighing 4.5 tonnes (someone get Van Dam on the phone). Where possible, weight saving was achieved with minimal electronics, and an aerodynamically optimised fibreglass cabin, while the software was reconfigured for performance runs, and a remapped I-Shift Dual Clutch transmission with a reinforced clutch lifted from an FH truck. The run itself you can check out above.
This is not Volvo Trucks’ first sweep of world records, having nailed ‘standing-start 0-1000m’ honours in 2007 (158.8kph) with the 1600hp ‘Wild Viking’, before usurping its own benchmark (166.7kph) with the 1800hp ‘NH D16’.
Things went hybrid in 2011 when ‘Mean Green’, the 1800hp electric-diesel monster taking, and then beating, 0-500 and 0-1000m records in 2011 and 2012.
