Trucks aren’t usually built for speed, but in the right hands they can become faster than any commercially-available supercar, and there’s no better proof than the legendary Shockwave, the fastest truck ever built
Originally built by the legendary Les Shockley in 1984, Shockwave was modified by Darnell Racing Enterprises and is still the Guinness record holder for ‘the world’s fastest jet truck’. The heavily-modified Peterbilt Semi had literally nothing under the hood, but that’s because a jet truck doesn’t need a diesel engine. Instead, this powerplant on wheels featured three Pratt & Whitney J58s jet engines at the back, which could develop a total of 36000 bhp to propel Shockwave forward at, well, shocking speeds. It could cover a quarter mile in 6.5 seconds, while a supercar like the Lamborghini Aventador does it in “only” 10.4 seconds.
