A few short years ago, Volvo managed to beat the speed record for a truck. To do this, they created a hybrid vehicle from the ground up.
Now, the Swedish manufacturer wanted to find a way to showcase their dual-clutch, I-shift transmission. So what better way to do it than to build another record-breaking truck with this gearbox as its centrepiece?
This is how Iron Knight was born. It is a custom truck made for one thing: speed. It comes with a D13 diesel engine displacing 13 litres and mounted amidships. This powerplant develops 2400 horsepower as well as 4425 pound-feet of torque.
Yeah.
As you can see in the above video, the truck is ridiculously fast: in 1000 metres, it got up to 276 km/h, and in only 4.6 seconds, it climbed up to 100 km/h. To put things into perspective, this is as fast as a bone-stock 2016 Ford Mustang GT!
You’ll have to check the video to see how they accomplished their objectives, but it’s interesting to realise just how far engineers can push a truck that size. While this vehicle obviously isn’t made to haul cargo, the transmission survived the harsh treatment.
