JCB Dieselmax Streamliner (Diesel Land Speed Record Car)
The JCB Dieselmax Land Speed Record Project was concieved by JCB's Chairman to serve as a technology demonstrator to prove the strength and reliability of JCB's new engine range.
The purpose-built Streamliner was powered by two JCB 444 Turbocharged engines.
I worked as part of the core Team who developed the car from first principals. I was responsible for bodyshell and underbody surface development – liaising with Engineering and Aerodynamics professionals to evolve and freeze the surfaces used to tool all bodywork.
JCB Dieselmax smashed the FIA landspeed record for diesel powered vehicles in the summer of 2006. The record remains unbroken.
Design Copyright JCB Excavators Ltd - images reproduced with permission
www.jcbdieselmax.com/streamliner
The project was run as a covert "Skunkworks" activity within JCB - only a handful of people within the Company knew we were working on it for it's 18 month gestation. It got tricky at times to juggle our day-job priorities without alerting suspicion. Huge fun - and great to work with such a highly competent and positive Team - their CAN DO attitude was hugely infectious, and has influenced my work approach ever since.
The underbody shape was critical to the cars Aerodynamic performance - and evolved significantly through CFD analysis and iterative development of the CAD. The aim was to use underbody airflow to pull salt spray out from behind the front wheels - as spray drag was identified as being one of the main factors limiting overall speed at Bonneville. In relative terms, I'd estimate I spent around 8x longer developing and refining the underbody (black) surfaces you don't generally see - the upper main exterior surfaces (yellow) were a piece of cake by comparison.
There were several versions of the car produced - this was the "showcar" used for our launch - a basic GRP shell. The real race car was carbon fibre bodied.
Ron Ayers was one of the key brains of the project - and my working partner throughout bodyshell aero development phase. Ron had previously worked on Thrust SSC, and studied aerodynamic performance of various land speed record vehicles to develop his "spray drag" theory - which was key to JCB Dieselmax's success. Throughout our working relationship Ron always encouraged me to trust my own insitncts in terms of form development - his view was that if it looked right, and was clean on the eye the chances are it'd be a good solution aerodynamically. Although we were approaching the project from very different backgrounds - we quickly gelled, and the aero solution we developed helped get the job done.
I was very kindly offered the opportunity to go with the Team to Bonneville to watch the record attempt - which would have been a great experience. However, I politely declined as I knew I wouldn't be able to contribute anything worthwhile to the Team - once the bodywork design was finalised and manufactured there wasn't anything other role I could realistically fill. At the time I had a very young family - and for me it was more important to spend my summer holiday with them rather than in the middle of a desert. However, I tuned in daily to get regular progress updates - and cheered as loudly as anyone else when we smashed the record!
Like all my project work done with JCB, the digital assets documenting the full development story remains property of the Company – so obviously can’t be shown here. This folio summary has been collated from images readily available on the web – images reproduced with permission.
