Street-Legal 2,700 HP Ford GT Does 292.9 MPH (470 KPH), Parachute Fails

Just so we're clear, that's not the car's top speed. It's just the best it could reach in a standing mile, which like saying "I could only climb the K2, not the Everest." However, that wasn't the result the Ford came for: the target was 300 mph, and they won't give up until it's done.

The car is owned by Johnny Bohmer Racing (JBR) and has no fewer than 2,700 hp, all screaming in the back of the head of the driver. Not that he has too much time to think about anything while he's doing close to 300 mph in a street-legal car.

Johhny Bohmer is the man who broke the record for the standing mile in a street car in 2012, and now he's back to outdo himself. Strapped in the seat of this Ford GT, he ventured in “The Quest for 300 MPH,” as he likes to call it, at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle runway in Florida (or "Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds, as he likes to call it).

The car is known as BADD GT (everything has a name in Bohmer's world, apparently) and it looks pretty standard on the outside. That is until you get to its rear where spaceship-like hoses wrapped in tinfoil stick out, as does a parachute used for braking. Even so, there was still enough room for the license plate, because the car needs to be street legal for the record to hold.

Bohmer only managed 292.9 miles on this run, but he now says that 300 mph is too cautious and reckons 315 is achievable (506 km/h). Hopefully, they'll do something about that parachute as well because it simply clipped off, leaving Bohmer to slow down the car using the brakes. The length of the runway sure came in handy that time, but using friction alone to slow down from that speed can be dangerous.

Bohmer hasn't set a date for the next run, but we'll keep an eye out. After all, this is the definition of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it scenarios.