The world speed record - for a car powered by organic waste - has been broken... by a car that is fuelled completely by coffee beans.

Engineer Martin Bacon, along with the Teesdale Conservation Volunteers of Durham, designed the old car with a "gasifier" and filters, which transforms waste coffee particles into energy for the engine. The car was designed in association with the BBC's popular show "Bang Goes the Theory".

The car entered the Guinness Book of Records after traveling from London to Manchester in March last year. No car, run by waste material, has ever completed such a distance. Earlier this month, the car - a modified Rover SD1 - managed to clock 66.5mph at the Elvington Race Track near York, breaking the previous record of 47mph achieved by a team from the U.S, which made a car powered by wood tablets.

"The coffee is heated up like charcoal and the combustion gases, which are generally carbo di-oxide and water vapour, are reduced by hot carbon to carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This is then filtered through a cyclone and a rock wool filter, before being cooled down by a radiator," a report in the Daily Mail said. Jem Stansfield, who anchors Bang Goes the Theory, was of the opinion that the car was a genuine option to engines powered by fossil fuels.

"By the end, the gas is a lot cooler and cleaner and is piped through to the engine. The coffee gas, the carbon monoxide and the hydrogen goes into the cylinders and the explosion drives the engine," he asserted

The car is scheduled to go on show at Bang Live in Manchester, between Oct. 22 and Oct. 23.

London