The quest for power has repercussions. It makes one drift away from social connections and reach a lonely place where you’re unique and brilliant, but you’ve got no friends left to bump into. Must be the case with the world’s fastest bumper car, which is also the loneliest. Built inside a shed within three weeks, the chassis is exactly the same as it was when on duty in an amusement park, and so is the wheel size.
Away from all of its merry friends, it was injected with a 600cc, 100bhp engine motorcycle engine to make it enter the Guinness World Record as the world’s fastest amusement park item outside its natural habitat. A project sponsored by BBC Worldwide, a lot of sweaty hours were spent trying to squeeze a motor and a couple wheels inside the shiny little thing’s bodywork. The sort of pointless steering wheel it used earlier has been replaced with handlebars and a foot lever has been employed to shift gears. On a record run, the bumper car breaches the 100 mph mark in a straight line. Crazy how you can attain serious speeds when you concentrate on moving on and move away from collisions.