The World’s Fastest Motorhome – A New Record

Performance and motorhomes are not two words that generally go together – despite today’s vans offering a pretty reasonable turn of speed, considering their size and weight.

However, there’s always someone who has to go that one stage further – and it’s no surprise that they come from the land of unlimited autobahns, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz! In this case the culprit is a tuning company called Goldschmitt, which has taken a standard Hymer Car motorhome and turned it into a bona fide, Guinness World Record holding speedster.

The Hymer smashed the previous 191km/h record with an official measured speed of 207km/h, placing it firmly into the Guinness Book of Records. Heinrich Bloemer, the Goldschmitt engineer responsible for the project, was keen to stress that the van was a standard 2.3-litre diesel Fiat Ducato model, not the more powerful 3-litre upgrade.

Bloemer said that “It would have been far simpler if we had taken the 3-litre version of the Fiat Ducato. But we wanted to show that the Ducato engine of lower cubic capacity has an enormous power reserve and is still very economical despite the present high output of about 200 hp”.

The magic ingredient, it seems, was gas, which is somehow mixed with standard diesel fuel to create a massive power boost – a Goldschmitt speciality. This van has ‘about’ 200hp – considerably more than the 130hp or so that the standard model puts out. There were a few other modifications, too – flush fitting windows and some underfloor aerodynamics were added to help airflow over the van.

Goldschmitt isn’t planning to rest on its laurels; the next challenge for this Hymer is to break 230km/h within 1000m from a standing start. The idea is to commemorate Goldschmitt’s 30th year in business (hence 230km/h) with the record attempt, which is planned for this spring.

In wonder if it’s road legal? I’d pay a lot of money to see the look on the Porsche drivers’ faces when you eased up behind them on the autobahn at 100mph…

Note: Record-breaking motorhomes aren’t new – over in the US, the GMC motorhome is a favourite with tuners and is in fact one of the previous holders of the title ‘World’s Fastest Motorhome’.