Size doesn’t matter: watch this little model car hit an incredible 850 km/h [video]

Engineering students from Nottinghamshire, UK have broken the Guinness World Record for fastest model car with an incredible speed of 533.1mph (857.9km/h).

The Redshift rocket on wheels model car is about 45cm long and uses a steel wire to keep it from shooting off into orbit.

The students beat the previous record for fastest land model car which was set in 2011 and stood at a rather mundane in comparison 287mph.

The class teacher, Phil Worsley, explains that he and his team of four girls and 14 boys, aged 11 to 17, did a lot of research and experimentation in run-up of the event:

We started with buying simple rocket kits, building them and firing them into the sky — then developed our ideas from there. We thought before we did the official runs that we were in with a good chance — we weren’t being cocky, but we had done lots of practice runs and knew how the cars were performing.

According to the BBC, the speed will have to be officially verified by the Guinness committee, but for now, the students seem to be pretty confident about reaching their milestone:

@JWSYE: For lost of videos of our Guinness World Record @GWR have a look at our Youtube! https://t.co/3IVOObl1wh

— JWS Young Engineers (@JWSYE) October 6, 2014