It’s unlikely that anything wearing a Honda badge will ever challenge the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport or Hennessey Venom GT for the record of world’s fastest production car.
Yet the Japanese carmaker can lay claim to one speed record. Guinness World Records has certified the company’s hilarious demonic Mean Mower as the world’s fastest lawnmower.
The Mean Mower achieved an average speed of 116.57 mph, shredding the previous record of 87.83 mph (set in 2010) like so much cut grass.
The record run was undertaken with the same level of precision as any involving more conventional forms of transportation.
Top Gear Magazine’s Piers Ward made two runs through a speed trap set up at the IDIADA Proving Ground in Tarragona, Spain, within an hour of each other, per Guinness regulations.
Those runs were averaged together to get the magic 116.57 mph, and Guinness officials were on hand to observe the whole process.
The Mean Mower is powered by a 1,000-cc Honda VTR motorcycle engine, which produces 109 horsepower. In addition to its record-breaking top speed, this hot-rod lawn tool can also do 0 to 60 mph in around four seconds.
Honda says the Mean Mower is geared for speeds up to 130 mph, so another record attempt may be in its future.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: it’s still a functional lawnmower, capable of trimming grass at up to 15 mph. That’s about twice as fast as a stock mower.