Waikato man on mission to break land speed record in home made car

RNZ News

18-05-2025

The car that Dave Alexander will drive when he sets out to break the land speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States.
Photo:
Supplied
A Kiwi engineer is on a mission to set a land speed record higher than 422km/h - in a car he built in his shed.
Seventy-two-year-old Dave Alexander has spent the past nine years building the Lakester, which looks more like the fuselage of a fighter jet than a car.
In three weeks he will ship the turbo-charged, 1000 horse power car to the United States to race at the famous Bonneville Salt Flats.
Alexander said he had previous records at Bonneville in a car that he built around 2008.
At that time "everybody was commenting about the quality of the build and the body design and the aerodynamics of the car," he said.
He decided that if he were to do it again he would contact them for the body of the car.
"It's really only the top part of the body, the sides are flat. So they took another plug out of the mould and sent it to me and I sort of started from there."
Alexander said he had to start from scratch to ensure the vehicle would survive at such high speeds.
"Getting a record was important, I didn't want to just go there to compete.
"So we looked through the record book to find a record that was achievable and the up to three litre record in this particular class of Lakester was 262 mile an hour and it had been set in 1996 and it was still existing."
Alexander contacted Robbie Ward in Rotorua who he described as the "Nissan guru" saying he built and shipped them all around the world.
Alexander's car (front).
Photo:
Supplied
Ward was keen to work on the project and Alexander said he had mentored him through the engine build, as well as building some of it.
They finished on Friday night, he said.
"We managed to get a 1000 horse power out of it, out of a 3 litre 6 cylinder - 885 horse power at the rear wheels which is more than enough to achieve it we think."
Alexander said in the past he had been able to test drive some of the cars at Ohakea but that was no longer possible as they said "the paper work now to do that is just too much".
Asked whether he would drive the car himself Alexander said "too right".
"I haven't done eight years to nine years building it to let someone else get in."
Alexander said he was prepared and they had done a lot of research and it was well designed and all the weight was in the right places.
You had to do three runs or "licensing passes" before attempting the record, he said.
"You slowly work your way up and so they can see that you're capable of doing it and the car is a safe car and then once you've done those three passes they will let you onto the long course where you can have an attempt at the record."
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