The JCB’s Fastrac has stormed into the record books as the world’s fastest tractor with an average speed of over 135 mph and the ZF Group has played an integral part in its development.

The Fastrac was designed and built by a team of young engineers in Staffordshire and secured the title with Guy Martin at the wheel. The feat was officially ratified by Guinness World Records and the whole story was captured in a Channel 4 documentary.

Due to the unique requirements of this project, ZF mobilised a special project team including colleagues from the UK, Germany and Hungary, spanning three divisions of ZF including: Services, Industrial and Truck division.  The JCB Fastrac was powered by the ZF Ecoshift transmission, typically found in heavy road applications and adapted to reach peak performance for this application. Working with JCB to deliver the project within a tight timescale, ZF presided over the integration of a special input shaft into production and subsequent installation and tuning of the transmission on the tractor.

Gavin Donoghue, ZF Aftermarket, Business Manager Off-Highway, said, “We were delighted to play such an important part in this world record attempt and congratulations to everyone involved. The achievement underlines the high quality capabilities of ZF across many areas of powertrain and driveline technology.”