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 speak with, following road-car speed legend Andy Wallace and sound-barrier breaker Andy Green. Dylan is different, though: he single-handedly built a bona fide machine for straight-line speed.

By fitting a 7bhp Honda SJ100 ‘Bali’ scooter engine to an innocent Haemmerlin wheelbarrow in a workshop hidden away in rural Pembrokeshire, the quietly spoken 38-year-old Welshman produced a gardening implement that blasted along RAF Elvington’s runway at a certified average of 52.58mph. Please observe a moment of silence for the world’s fastest wheelbarrow.

Photography: Huckleberry Mountain

Dylan Phillips and the world’s fastest wheelbarrow

“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.”

Where did the idea originate? “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 would surely argue that this is 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-breaking speed barrow

To enter a certified speed trial, the barrow needed rebuilding to official NORA 92 standards. That meant adding a kill switch, paint markings on the fastenings to show whether anything had begun to loosen, and even a hydraulic damper on the steering bars to prevent a potentially catastrophic tank-slapper – or should that be 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.” This is particularly troublesome because the go-kart wheels on either side of the hand-built ‘trolley’, in which Dylan kneels, have no brakes. The scooter brake remains only on the driven front wheel.

Dylan says braking is the chief problem to resolve for MkII. Then there is the steering, which is close to impossible because he has to keep his elbows tucked in like a ski jumper. At more than 50mph, the barrow also behaves like a wing and attempts to lift off. Weight distribution is another slightly alarming matter: the barrel strapped into the skids is not a fuel tank, but an old fire extinguisher packed with wet sand to provide stabilising ballast.

The next speed barrow will suspend its engine in that area – “mid-engined, y’see” – with a chain running to the front wheel and brakes fitted to all three wheels. Dylan is justifiably pleased that it is not merely a racer disguised as a barrow. It is 100 per cent garden centre. “If you pulled the engine off and uncoupled the back you could use it on a building site.”

Workshop projects and a transatlantic challenge

Dylan’s homemade creations extend well beyond the wheelbarrow. Around his workshop sit a motorbike seemingly lifted from Mad Max, powered by the enormous engine from a 1952 cement mixer; another project made from Chinese bike parts recovered from a riverbed; and ‘Project Dear Oh Deere’ – a ride-on lawnmower combined with the 110bhp V-twin engine from a Honda Firestorm superbike.

It is all in aid of a worthwhile cause. Dylan’s monthly open workshop evenings collect funds for the DPJ Foundation, a mental-health charity supporting Wales’s agricultural community. Having demonstrated the concept using his own money, he now hopes sponsors will get behind the next build. A new barrow has already been provided.

He will require it. Only days after we met Dylan, news arrived from the USA that the target had moved. John Loghry of Iowa reached 55mph in his homemade motor barrow while fundraising for Vietnam veterans.

The Welsh answer is expected to produce a formidable 28bhp and be geared for more than 70mph. The transatlantic charity speed-barrow contest is under way.