Iron Knight Volvo Truck Smashes Two World Records, Is Quicker Than Everything

Hulk would be jealous

If you take the time to explore all the layers of the discipline called motorsport, you'll see that the madness they call truck racing understandably enjoys a big chunk of popularity.

With record-breaking trucks, well, it's a different story, one that Volvo tells better than anyone else.

The brand's trucks division has a record breaking background started in 2007 by the 1,600-horsepower Wild Viking truck and carried on four years later by the Mean Green hybrid truck. 'Mean' as in 1,800 hp coming from a diesel engine and 300 hp pumped by an electric motor. So let's agree this particular word is only a soft way of describing it.

Following the timeline takes us to present day, when Volvo Trucks upped its game with the Iron Knight. Before getting into record-breaking matters, a few words on the truck's performance credentials.

Power peaks at 2,400 hp, but it's the alien 6,000 Nm of torque that enables this Usain Bolt-Hulk hybrid to shift its 4.5 tons from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 4.6 seconds.

In charge of abusing the tires with all that power is an I-Shift dual-clutch transmission but other improvements have been applied to the truck. For example, they tried to mend the brick shape with an aero-optimized fiberglass cabin and larger air intakes that breathe more air into the mid-mounted diesel engine.

Now, for the record-breaking bit. The truck managed to beat the world speed record for 1000 meters from a standing start with an average speed of 169 km/h and a time of 21.29 seconds, but also knocked down the corresponding record for the 500-meter stretch, at 131.29 km/h and 13.71 seconds.

During the two runs, the Iron Knight was clocked in at a top speed of 276 km/h. Talking about oversized speed demons.