Cheap van insurers agog at JCB land speed record!

Vancover.co.uk knows a thing about shifting cheap van insurance. Vancover.co.uk should mind, given the sheer volume of cheap van insurance they get through. This is largely because Vancover.co.uk's name goes before them. Closely followed by the sentence about the cheapest van insurance. A successful partnership if you like. Much in the same way, minus the cheap van insurance bit, and the name on van drivers lips - Vancover.co.uk, as JCB have successfully teamed up with a couple of fast drivers. Vancover.co.uk sent round one of their cheap van insuring journo's to find out what all the fuss is about..

Alien abduction, fat camp, Vanessa Feltz a size 12 and nightlife in Grimsby . I've heard of some pretty convoluted and plainly weird things in my short life to date, but of all of them, I maintain that spontaneous combustion has to be one of the most impressive. Well, most impressive if not messy, ways to meet your sticky end that is. Spontaneous combustion may sound like a device to make your motor go faster, but actually it's the art of going up in flames. Admittedly, this unusual art doesn't take much practice, the first time successful enough for most of its not so eager disciples. For the lonely its one way of initiating a disco inferno all of your own. What a way to go.

Another such flame-throwing way, would be strapped into a 1500bhp mechanical digger. A bright yellow one with the letters JCB printed on the side. Usually spotted trundling backwards and forwards over rubble and debris, operated by someone of hard hat - the construction site favourite is, strangely, not known for its speed. Unless you're talking about their highly tuned twin-5.0 litre engined (each developing 750bhp to propel each set of wheels) workhorse, capable of 300mph. Now that's just freaking odd. Next you'll be telling Vancover.co.uk that it's a diesel. Which of course it is.

Heavy-plant equipment maker JCB have teamed up with Richard Noble, a name you might be familiar with, and Andy Green. The former being Land-Speed record holder of yesteryear (and now team leader on Project JCB Diesel Max); the latter being the current fastest man on earth who isn't sponsored by Nike. Their collective aim being to take part in high speed runs at the famous Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah later this summer. In their specially built JCB aerodynamic racer.

What would have been a tall order thanks to a large scoop resisting the rapid flow of air, has been acknowledged, and subsequently addressed, after several rigorous tests in a wind-tunnel. In fact, many exacting tests later and minor differences between the original track and field-gobbler - and what we're left with today - are evident to the keen, eagle-eyed digger fanatics amongst you. Gone is the heavy scoop and claw mechanism, along with the - what was deemed just too stubborn an object to pass air around - traditional cabin space. Pah! Charlatan.

What Vancover.co.uk now see before them is a streamlined, svelte and altogether, completely re-designed, rear-wheel propelled loon-mobile that looks like something out of a Batman movie. And therefore more along the smooth lines of Thrust, the 736mph surface to air missile that Green rode side-saddle on back in 1997. Obviously 300mph is going to seem slightly pedestrian in comparison, yet this is after all diesel powered. And the current record for the diesel-powered land speed record, recorded way back in 1973, was 235.756mph. Which must have caused quite a ruffling of the amassed line up of flared trousers amongst spectators that time round.

JCB's Chairman is Sir Anthony Bamford. And he's rather excited about the whole venture. "I'm passionate about the importance of engineering excellence to Britain " he cooed. "I see using the JCB444 engine for this fantastic record attempt as a way of showcasing what British engineers can do. The JCB444 has been hailed as a remarkable piece of engineering and this project to build the worlds fastest diesel-powered automobile is precisely the sort of technical challenge we should rise to" he added modestly for a man in his position.

Nearly as modestly as Vancover.co.uk come across when championing their cheap van insurance cause. A cheap van insurance cause that shows no sign of letting up. Vancover.co.uk have been on to a cheap van insuring winner for years now - and there's no way on this cheap van insuring earth, that Vancover.co.uk are going to be held back now.

Date - 21/09/2006