Gallery: these are the coolest land speed record cars

Richard Noble is cut from the same cloth as the original pioneers of speed. Thrust 2 was built on a shoestring, left under a tarp at Black Rock between runs, and driven with real derring-do.

"The Right Stuff" was a phrase that could have been coined for Craig Breedlove. Just like the post-war experimental test pilots, Breedlove wasn't short of bravery or machismo. In 1963, he took his radical three-wheel, jet-powered Spirit of America to Bonneville, and went 407.447mph. The FIA refused to ratify the record on the grounds that the wheels weren't driven and there were only three of them. The following year, the FIA agreed to permit non-wheel-driven cars but insisted they had to have four wheels. Breedlove, presumably waving fingers in their direction, went back to Bonneville and held the taps right open. For too long. At the end of his second run, with a 526.28mph average in the bag, he crashed, skidding for five miles before hitting a telegraph pole and landing in a lake. He was back again the following year.

MG? Record-breaking? Yep, it really happened. Back in 1957, MG streamlined an A, extracted 290bhp from the 1.5 and achieved 245.64mph. The driver? Stirling Moss.

The fuel EX 181 used wasn't nice though: 86 per cent methanol, with added acetone, nitrobenzene and sulphuric ether...

Babs epitomised the first era of record breaking. Vast aero engine, chain drive, gutsy chap. It took the record to 171.02mph but later crashed, killing its driver, John Parry-Thomas.

Engineering is cool. No need for discussion, just look at Bloodhound. A jet and three rockets for faster acceleration than a fighter jet. Proof positive the UK still has its own right stuff.

Perhaps the most beautiful of all record-breakers. In 1929, after a single practice run, Henry Segrave took his 925bhp machine to 231.45mph, a vast 24mph improvement on the old mark.

Bluebird CN7 was an end rather than a beginning. It was the last wheel-driven car to hold the record before jet power – specifically Craig Breedlove’s Spirit of America – took over. Donald Campbell’s machine was Fifties tech at its best, a Proteus gas turbine driving all four wheels. Despite heavy support, bad luck afflicted Bluebird, with rain falling at Australia’s Lake Eyre for the first time in 20 years... 403.10mph was a record, but way below Campbell’s 500mph target.

It’s 1911, and Fiat wants to wrest the record from the 200hp Blitzen-Benz. Its car sounds modern – just four cylinders, four valves per cylinder, water cooling and multi-spark ignition. And a cubic capacity of 28,353. Frenchman Arthur Duray chose Ostend seafront for his attempt. However, the local tram driver refused to change his timetable, and there were issues with the newfangled electronic timing gear. Its 139.8mph speed was never ratified.

JATO stands for Jet Assisted Take Off. The US military used these rockets to help overladen planes take off, but Walt Arfons had a better idea. He’d attach 15 of them to the back of a rocket-shaped chassis and light them off. The result? Around 485mph. Not enough. So, for 1965, Walt cut holes in the flanks, and added another 10 JATOs. Acceleration, apparently, was alarming, but the rockets burned out before the end of the measured mile. Way cool, Walt.