The Sunswift team’s full year of planning, negotiating, and testing finally paid off yesterday. We smashed the Guinness World Record for fastest Solar-Powered vehicle by over 10 kmh. Barton Mawer officially broke the record at around 10:30am with a speed of 88.738 km/h. Runs continued until 1:30pm when rain prevented further attempts. The two official drivers switched midway through.
The team has its own drivers, but for this task they decided to secure professional race car drivers Barton Mawer of Mawer Engineering and Craig Davis of Tesla Europe. Tesla Australia also brought their sexy electric roadster to showcase to spectators.
As with the mammoth undertaking of building the car from scratch last year, the world record speed tests and official runs were riddled with obstacles. However, the team pulled together and shined through these challenges.
The weather was unforgiving in Nowra on all three testing days, with morning clouds giving way to rain in the afternoons. One team member jokingly suggested that we change our name to Cloudswift.
Supporters and sponsors turned out en masse. Base officials, heads of UNSW, our sponsors, Redback Racing team members, Nowra locals, and holiday makers spectated and showed support from the viewing platform at the Fleet Air Museum.
The GM Sunraycer set the previous record of 78 kmh in 1987, before most members of the Sunswift team was even born.
For more photos and videos of the Guinness Record runs, visit and Like our Facebook page, UNSW Solar Racing Team.
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