The past few days have been quite interesting for the JCB GT as it was crowned the fastest digger on earth in Bathurst, Australia, after reaching a speed of 70 miles per hour. The event took place on the 20th of November 2014.

As well as being the world’s biggest selling backhoe loader for the past 14 years, the digger was officially awarded the Guinness World Record for fastest backhoe loader in the world on the 25th of November 2014, with a speed of 72.58 mph (116.82 km/hr). It surpassed the original benchmark of 110 km/hr which was set by Guinness World Records. The GT has always been regarded as the fastest backhoe however it is now official.

The Demonstration Driver was Matthew Lucas, a 43 year old man from Werrington, Stoke-on-Trent in the United Kingdom. He has been nicknamed ‘The Dig’ for giving the machine its well deserved title. This must have been an extremely joyous moment for him knowing that he steered the digger to victory.

The machine was invented in 1953 however it only made its debut in 1988. It was made of fibreglass and aluminium and powered by a V8 Chevvy engine. It was originally designed to perform high speed wheelies at racing events. The digger made an appearance at the Formula One Australian Grand Prix in 1990 and here it is about 24 years later breaking records and receiving the official award for world’s fastest backhoe loader. The GT now makes regular appearances at US drag strips.

The JCB GT is based at the JCB Headquarters in Staffordshire, United Kingdom. The most recent version of the GT has a loader and a digger end made completely out of aluminium.

See the JCB GT in action in the video below:

We may not have the fastest digger in the world in our fleet however we do have the JCB Teletruk which is definitely worth a look!

Sources:

Forkliftnet

Derby Telegraph

Plant technology

The Motor Report

Materials Handling World Magazine

We are using cookies on our website

Please confirm, if you accept our tracking cookies. You can also decline the tracking, so you can continue to visit our website without any data sent to third party services.