Friday 16th March 2018

Honda Mean Mower returns!

How to make the Mean Mower madder still? Drop a Fireblade engine in it...

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Remember the Honda Mean Mower of a few years back? Course you do. It's quite hard to forget a vehicle ostensibly for garden duties that boasts more than 500hp per tonne. Now, nearly five years after it was first shown and four years after the 'world's fastest mower' record was set, Honda is back with another version.

Still going by the name of 'Mean Mower' this version is described by Honda as "wild" - because the last one was so tame, right? The most significant change seems to be the switch from a 109hp Firestorm engine to one from a Fireblade. And yes, that's a new Fireblade. With 189hp. At 13,000rpm. Blimey...

As a result Honda says this new mower will be capable of more than 134mph, in theory comfortably exceeding the 116mph of the original. Driving duties are being handed to Jess Hawkins, former British Karting champ and currently racing (and winning) in the Mini Challenge. How far over 134mph can it actually go?

Additional details on the Mean Mower Mk2 are pretty limited at the moment, Honda ending its preview video with a 'coming soon' teaser and nothing else. When there's news of the next record attempt we'll let you know!

 

[Dafuq]

Mental, has me pondering how much quicker I could.get my paddocks mowed.

[Integroo]

Does it mow at 134mph?

[Turbobanana]

134mph? They must be on weed...

[soad]

[Twoshoe]

Integroo said:

Does it mow at 134mph?

Presumably, if it does mow at 134mph, you'd be needing to empty the grass collector every few seconds.

[normalbloke]

Integroo said:

Does it mow at 134mph?

Surely that will depend on the tip speed of the retreating blade... it's a bit like asking helicopters to go fast...

[Pericoloso]

Perhaps Fernando ALAWNso could have a go on it.....except it's a Honda......

[kellydk]

This is awesome! Well done Honda for letting your engineers go mad to develop this.

Driving this must be a true white knuckle ride and personally some of the insanity of this should be put into modern cars / supercars / hypercars. Make a car challenging to drive quickly rather than the sanitized approach to cars these days. At this point who cares if your hot hatch has 300bhp and top speeds of 150+ mph. You can’t use it anywhere. The Colin Chapman approach of less is more is more appropriate these days.

[sidesauce]

kellydk said:

Make a car challenging to drive quickly rather than the sanitized approach to cars these days.

Why? If the people actually buying the cars don't want a challenging car then why go against the customers wishes?
A Noble M600 is a challenging car. No-one buys it (ok, less than 30 people do annually).

kellydk said:

At this point who cares if your hot hatch has 300bhp and top speeds of 150+ mph.

I do.

kellydk said:

You can’t use it anywhere.

Yes you can (and I in fact have). It's called the Autobahn and even though the opportunity isn't there as often as in times past to 'go for it' it's still possible to do.

[Ilovejapcrap]

From what you can see in video it’s just a engine on a tube body with mower plastics.

I hope I’m wrong but did not see any drive for actual mowing etc. In which case poor show not a mower just a go kart.

Now if it does and all works much more silly and fun