Dylan Phillips and the Fastest Wheelbarrow on Earth

“Is it like, y'know, riding a bike?”

“Um, it’s more like pushing a wheelbarrow. Except the wheelbarrow is trying to kill you.”

Dylan Phillips is the third land speed record holder I’ve been fortunate enough to interview, following road-car speed legend Andy Wallace and sound-barrier breaker Andy Green. Dylan is different, though: he single-handedly built a certifiable machine for outright straight-line speed.

The fastest wheelbarrow on Earth

In a workshop tucked away in the depths of Pembrokeshire, the softly spoken 38-year-old Welshman fitted a 7 bhp (5.2 kW) Honda SJ100 ‘Bali’ scooter engine to an unsuspecting Haemmerlin wheelbarrow. The result was a garden implement capable of charging along RAF Elvington’s runway at a certified average of 52.58 mph (84.62 km/h). Please observe a moment of silence for the world’s fastest wheelbarrow.

Photography: Huckleberry Mountain

“I didn’t expect this to blow up like it did,” Dylan admits. “There are so many things going on in the news, you just don’t expect messing about with a wheelbarrow to get any traction.”

What prompted the idea? “I’ve always had an interest in machinery, things that work, but it’s taken a long time to find that little niche,” he shrugs. “To almost feel comfortable enough in being uncool to just do this stuff.” Top Gear readers, naturally, will consider that anything but uncool.

“Like all the best and worst plans, it started in the pub. I had this idea of strapping a scooter engine onto a wheelbarrow and just sort of having a laugh with it. It hadn’t even crossed my mind there were world records for this sort of thing. After I built it, there was another late night pub discussion wondering if there was a Guinness World Record.”

Building a record-ready speed barrow

Before it could enter a certified speed trial, the wheelbarrow needed rebuilding to official NORA 92 standards. That meant fitting a kill switch, applying paint marks to the fastenings so any loosening would be obvious, and adding a hydraulic damper to the steering bars to prevent a potentially fatal tank-slapper – or perhaps a barrow-basher.

“It still does get a wobble on,” grimaces Dylan. “If you built a bike with this frame geometry it would be the worst looking bike in the world. You’d have a front wheel two feet out in front of the forks. So yeah, the steering damper helps a bit, but the issue is slowing down.”

That is especially significant because the go-kart wheels on either side of the scratch-built ‘trolley’, where Dylan kneels, have no brakes. Only the driven front wheel keeps the scooter’s original brake.

Dylan says braking is the chief weakness to resolve for MkII. Steering is another concern, made almost impossible by the position he must adopt, elbows tucked in like a ski jumper. At more than 50 mph (80 km/h), the barrow also behaves like a wing and attempts to lift off. Then there is the slightly questionable weight distribution: the cylinder mounted in the skids is not the fuel tank, but an old fire extinguisher filled with wet sand to provide stabilising ballast.

A faster Welsh wheelbarrow is coming

The next speed barrow will place the engine down low – “mid-engined, y’see” – and use a chain drive for the front wheel, with brakes on all three wheels. Dylan is justifiably pleased that his creation is not merely a racer with the vague outline of a wheelbarrow. It is entirely garden-centre specification. “If you pulled the engine off and uncoupled the back you could use it on a building site.”

His home-built projects extend far beyond the wheelbarrow. Around his workshop sit a Mad Max-style motorbike powered by the enormous engine of a 1952 cement mixer, another project using Chinese motorcycle parts recovered from a riverbed, and ‘Project Dear Oh Deere’ – a ride-on lawnmower combined with the 110 bhp (82 kW) V-twin engine from a Honda Firestorm superbike.

All of it serves a worthwhile purpose. Dylan’s monthly workshop open evenings raise funds for the DPJ Foundation, a mental-health charity that supports Wales’s agricultural sector. Having financed the proof of concept himself, he now hopes sponsors will back the next build. A new wheelbarrow has already been supplied.

He will need it. Within days of our meeting, Dylan learned that the American benchmark had moved. John Loghry of Iowa reached 55 mph (89 km/h) in his homemade motorised wheelbarrow while collecting money for Vietnam veterans.

The Welsh answer is expected to produce a formidable 28 bhp (21 kW) and be geared for more than 70 mph (113 km/h). The transatlantic charity speed-wheelbarrow contest is under way.