World’s most insane car packs 18,000+ horsepower from 2 Rolls-Royce jet engines

Ryan McQueen has built the world’s first car powered by two Rolls-Royce Jet Engines, the Insanity Jet Car. The car produces an insane 18,000+ horsepower, but the story about how it was built is even more insane.

At Interesting Engineering, we are always looking for some of the world’s biggest, most powerful, and wackiest engineering projects. We have covered some insane-sized trucks, Teslas with 10-foot-wide wheels, and even cars that go insanely fast.

However, Ryan McQueen’s Insanity Car is in a different league altogether. Based in Canada, McQueen is passionate about aviation and cars and has beautifully blended the two in the Insanity Jet Car.

Insanity Jet Car

From a distance, McQueen’s creation looks like a heavily modified Ferrari. However, a closer look reveals that the Ferrari body only gives the structure a car-like appearance. The structure is powered by two beasts that have flown airplanes in the past.

Originally designed in the 1950s, the two Rolls-Royce engines have been used in experimental jets trialed by the British Royal Air Force and even the US Air Force. Together, they can generate 14,000 pounds of thrust, and it’s no surprise that McQueen wants to cross 400 miles an hour in a dragster race with them.

McQueen’s wife has dubbed it the Insanity Jet Car, and rightly so if you learn how it was built.

The insane journey

As an 18-year-old McQueen, he saw the legendary Les Shockley and his Shockwave jet truck and fell in love with the idea. But it wasn’t until he was 30 that he saw them in action again and decided that he had to do something similar himself.

The catch, however, was that he had no concept of how to do it, not even the faintest idea of how they work, and definitely not the skills needed to make one. After a bit of research, he found out that the Ferrari Enzo had a body wide enough to fit two jet engines, and he got started.

Over the next five to six years, he built the vehicle’s body and managed to source the two jet engines from a friend in Colorado. Once these were available, he built the chassis and the components all by himself.

McQueen taught himself to weld, learned AutoCAD to design, and turned to YouTube to learn how to work with fiberglass and carbon fiber. What he could not learn at home, he began learning at race tracks by crewing up with teams, listening to what they had to say, and using the information to build his car.

It took 17 years to make the car, and then COVID hit, grounding all his plans to get his car to the tracks. After two years of agonizing wait, McQueen finally began showcasing his creation and is now aiming for the 400 mph mark in the Insanity Jet Car.

Watch him go.