Over the years, some truly impressive records have been broken in the world of motoring, with companies and individuals investing thousands of man hours to get their projects off the ground. Speed, distance, performance; there are always new records to break when it comes to cars, and people are constantly coming up with weird and creative new ways to write themselves into the history books and grab a Guinness World Record.
To celebrate the weird and the wonderful of motoring, here we look at 15 of the oddest driving and car-related records.
1. Hairiest Car
You read it right. Italian car fan, Maria Lucia Mugno, scooped a Guinness World Record for covering her Fiat 500 in 120kg of natural hair fibres, making it the hairiest thing on four wheels. Rumour has it Maria spent £75,000 and over 150 hours covering her vintage Fiat in hair, all because her friend dared her to while working in a hair salon. Talk about commitment.
2. Longest Time to Kiss a Car
Many of us have a soft spot for our car, but we’d bet you don’t love yours quite as much as Ernesta Ambrosio and Jesús Juárez Vite, who spent 76 hours straight kissing their beloved motor. Ernesta and Jesús completed the challenge in La Feria, Mexico over four solid days from 10-14 October 2013. Why? Who knows, but we reckon it can’t be all that good for your paintwork.
3. Largest Synchronised Car Dance
No, it isn’t a computer animation. That’s a clip of the Dubai police force breaking the world record for the largest synchronised car dance. It’s difficult to appreciate how much work and coordination must have gone into this brilliant driving feat, as well as just how big Dubai’s car parks must be. In total, 143 cars drove in sync, making it the largest organised car dance of its kind.
4. First Submarine Car
While we all hoped that 007’s Wet Nellie was real, Swiss company Rinspeed took us a step closer to Q Brach-reality in 2008 with sQuba, the world’s first submersible car. Running on three lithium-ion batteries and two jet drives, the sQuba can transition from land to water in a matter of minutes, with the car fully drivable down to a depth of 10 metres. If anything deserves a Guinness World Record, it’s this.
5. Fastest Car in Space
On 6 February 2018, SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket into heliocentric orbit, along with a Tesla Roadster car which once belonged to SpaceX founder, Elon Musk. The car, which has a mannequin strapped in the driver’s seat and a copy of Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in the glovebox, is now hurtling through space at around 75,000 mph, making it the fastest car to have ever travelled in the Milky Way.
6. The Most Expensive Personalised Number Plate
Think a few hundred pounds seems steep for a personalised number plate? That’s nothing compared to the £7.2m that Saeed Khouri spent on a special single digit ‘1’ number plate at an auction in Abu Dhabi. Little did Mr Khouri know that his purchase would earn him a Guinness World Record for the most money ever spent on a personalised plate, making it all worth it. Or maybe not.
7. Fastest Car Window Opened by a Dog
We’re not sure how his owner taught him to do it, but Canadian pooch Striker pawed his way into the record books by manually opening a car window in the fastest time ever recorded for a dog. Using just his paw and nose, border collie Striker wound down the window in 11.34 seconds, proving that you don’t need electric windows to feel the breeze.
8. Longest Journey by a Coffee-Powered Car
With fuel prices soaring, why not take a lead from ‘Car-puccino’, a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco that runs purely on coffee. In March 2010, Car-puccino completed a 210-mile journey from London to Manchester, claiming the Guinness World Record for the longest journey by a coffee-powered car. It works by heating coffee granules in a charcoal fire, the gas of which is cooled and filtered to create hydrogen, which is used to power the engine.
9. Most Cars Washed in Eight Hours
While it takes the average motorist about an hour to wash their car, Aussie car wash specialists, Repco, managed to clean 6,277 in just eight hours across its 89 branches in Australia and New Zealand. To put that figure into perspective, that’s around 785 cars per hour, with 87 being washed at each separate car wash. We’re not sure how they did it, but we’re sure you’ll agree that it’s genuinely amazing.
10. Fastest Side Wheelie Lap of the Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a revered German race track where some of the world’s leading car brands go to test out their new high-performance machines, but in 2016, the circuit hosted an altogether different kind of test. On 3 November, specialist stunt driver, Han Yue, broke the GWR for the fastest lap of the Nürburgring in a side wheelie, completing the circuit in 45 minutes and 59 seconds. That’s got to be worth a place in the history books.
11. Fastest Speed for a Car Driven Blindfolded
From one remarkable feat of driving prowess to another; Mike Newman set the Guinness World Record for the fastest speed for a car driven blindfolded back in 2014, hitting 200.51 mph on an airfield in Yorkshire. On setting the new record, Mike was actually breaking his own fastest speed which he’d previously set at 186mph in 2013. On bravery alone, it’s clear Mike deserves his GWR title.
12. Longest Car
Measuring over 100ft and complete with such features as 26 wheels, king-sized bed and swimming pool with diving board, Jay Ohrberg’s colossal, custom-built limousine has held the Guinness World Record for the world’s longest car since 1986. Originally built for Hollywood films, Ohrberg’s creation can be driven as either a rigid vehicle or adjusted to bend in the middle – the perfect car for every occasion.
13. Tightest Car Parallel Parking
Many drivers struggle to parallel park and will actively look for different parking spots that are more in-and-out. Not Alistair Moffatt. In 2015, Moffatt set the Guinness World Record for the tightest parallel park, easing a Fiat 500 into a tiny space with just only 3 inches of room at either end.
14. Fastest Reverse Drive Over 500 Miles
It’s not often motorists have to reverse over great distances, and even manoeuvring around a car park is enough to leave some drivers forgetting their left and right. Someone who certainly knows a thing or two about reversing is Rob Gibney, a Canadian driver who drove his Ford Crown Victoria backwards for over 500 miles, averaging an impressive 41 mph.
15. Longest Ever Road Trip
Thought your summer road trip felt like a long drive? It’s nothing compared to Emil and Lilania, who’ve been driving around the world non-stop since 1984. The couple earned their Guinness World Record back in 1997 for the longest continuous car journey, but that’s done nothing to slow them down. As of 2017, the couple has covered a staggering 461,400 miles in 186 countries, amazingly all in the same Toyota Land Cruiser. Now that’s endurance driving.
We hope you enjoyed reading this shortlist of motoring’s weirdest world records as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Stay tuned to the Redex blog to hear about our own record attempt which we’ll be taking on in 2019. Or, for information on our innovative fuel additives and system cleaners, visit the homepage today.