Honda cracks 418km/h with 660cc turbo car

Honda has announced the fastest car it’s ever built comes powered by a tiny 660cc three-cylinder turbo after the Japanese manufacturer won its 1000cc class at the Bonneville Salt Flats with an FIA-verified top speed of 418.4km/h.

The new record, an average clocked over a distance exceeding a kilometre, saw the S-Dream salt racer peak at an incredible 421.5km/h. Earlier in the day conditions saw the Honda land speed hopeful record a high of 428.1km/h. But, overall, the average speed was lower over the standard kilometre, so it wasn't officially recognised by the FIA.

According to Honda, the S-Dream took just one year and 16 engineers to bring to fruition.

Originally, the project started life based around the 660cc turbo from the S660 roadster. In standard tune, the small three-cylinder motor produces just 47kW/104Nm but after months of hard work it's rumoured engineers managed to coax well over 150kW from the tiny engine.

Honda hasn't said how exactly it extracted the extra power from such a small engine but said the race engine runs new pistons, valves, crankshaft and beefed-up connecting rods.

Such are the pressures from the performance enhancements, engineers also admitted the small three-cylinder's block had to be re-cast in steel.

Blunting the Japanese brand's record attempt were difficult salt conditions that saw the S-Dream's driver, former Japanese motorcycle champion Hikaru Miyagi, struggle to make out the salt-flat course and point the racer in the right direction.

A redesign of the S-Dream's canopy saw a ten-day delay on the record attempt while a new cockpit was fabricated at Honda's California-based R&D centre to give driver Miyagi more vision to pick out the coned course.

The S-Dream surpasses the last Honda Bonneville Salt record. Back in 2006 Honda ran one of its BAR-Honda F1 cars and recorded a top speed of 397.4km/h.