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This 660cc Honda Set a Land Speed Record at Bonneville
Conventional wisdom says you need lots of horsepower to breach the 250 mph mark, but that's not necessarily the case. Yeah, a huge motor helps out a lot for hitting big speeds, but low weight and clever aerodynamics can achieve the same effect, like they did in the Honda S Dream Streamliner.
The S Dream Streamliner is powered by a 600cc motor not dissimilar to the 63-horsepower three-cylinder used in the tiny Honda S660 sports car, though modified significantly to produce around triple the horsepower. Honda took it to the salt flats of Bonneville for Speed Week and managed a 261.875 mph standing mile, making it the fastest Honda ever. It also takes the FIA record for supercharged automobiles displacing between 500 and 750cc.
Honda created the "Bonneville Speed Challenge" program last year, giving 16 people from its Japanese R&D team the goal of, "[achieving a] world speed record with 660cc engine."
The car was designed and testedwith no problems in Japan, but when it was first run at Bonneville, the driver, Hikaru Miyagi, couldn't see well out of the windshield. With only 10 days before Speed Week's beginning, Honda took the Streamliner to a California R&D facility to redesign the body for better visiblity.
The S Dream Streamliner managed to hit a top speed of 266 mph, but its official record stands at 261.875 because it couldn't hit 266 traveling in both directions. That's still faster than the record Honda set in 2006 with its F1 car, which only managed 246 mph.
Now, Honda just needs to put the Streamliner's engine in the S660. Triple the horsepower means triple the fun, right?
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