Volvo breaks truck world speed record

We don't usually cover trucks, they're simply not fast enough, but we've made an exception for The Iron Knight, a custom semi built by Volvo to set a new speed record.

Powered by a 13.0-litre turbo-diesel engine, The Iron Knight produces an insane 1790kW/5996Nm, which is certainly enough to get our attention.

Volvo was aiming to reset the records it established in 2012 for the standing 500m and standing kilometre. And it did just that, recording a time of 13.71sec for the half-kilometre and a faintly astonishing 21.29sec for the standing kilometre.

To put that in perspective, the last time MOTOR performed 0-1000m testing a Porsche 997.2 911 GT3 RS completed the same distance in 22.61sec, albeit on a very poor surface, which probably cost it a second. Even so, it still trails Volvo's monster machine.

What does all this prove? Not sure, but it's very cool.