Ford GT supercar hits 500km/h, driver claims a world record

The owner of a highly-modified Ford GT is claiming a world speed record for a road car after hitting a claimed 500km/h on the NASA Shuttle landing strip at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

For now, there is no independent confirmation to back the phenomenal claim, which would make this particular Ford GT faster than a Formula One race car.

The driver pushed his twin-turbo 2006-model GT – with the number plate BADD GT – along the 4.5-kilometre strip and claims his data system reported a top speed of 310.8mph (500.184km/h).

“Undisputed fastest street car on the planet Earth,” the driver, performance tuner Johnny Bohmer, said after his run.

But there is no independent verification of his claim, although Mr Bohmer and his GT previously hit 283.232mph (455.8km/h) in 2012 with a run that was verified by Guinness World Records as the fastest standing mile speed run by a road-legal car.

Mr Bohmer is the owner of Performance Power Racing (USA) and his Ford GT produced a claimed 895kW for its original record run, although that was boosted to 2000kW by 2018 and he was tuning for more power and performance at the time of his claimed 500km/h run.

By Australian standards, the BADD GT is well beyond the limits of a road-legal car – although it is licensed and insured for street use in Florida, even though it has a parachute to assist with stopping during high-speed runs.

The top-speed attempt was one of many at the same location by the same driver.

Although the run was not officially sanctioned or verified, and it was claimed to be just to tune the engine management system and traction control, the car was still fitted with a bank of timing gear.

The timing package included four Garmin Ultra 30 cameras and satellite-based speed-measuring equipment.

The tuning firm has also produced an unedited video of the run.

There has been controversy and doubt around top-speed claims for road cars for decades, with a number of cars ruled ineligible because they did not have proper certification, had been modified, or did not make a two-way run to provide an average top speed.

In 2020 a US hypercar company, SSC, claimed a record of 508.73km/h (316.1mph) with its Tuatara, but the effort on a highway in Nevada was disputed and it was later repeated and sanctioned on the runway at the Kennedy Space Centre. The car then managed an average speed of 455.28km/h (282.9mph).