Inventor sets world record for 'fastest piece of furniture'
Perry Watkins, an inventor from Buckinghamshire, is thought to have set a world record for the fastest piece of furniture after driving his dining table down a racetrack at more than 113mph.
By Nick Collins
Published: 10:00PM BST 06 Sep 2010
Perry Watkins broke the record at Northamptonshire's Santa Pod Raceway Photo: REX
The 47-year-old piloted the Queen Anne table, set for a silver service dinner, twice down a 500m track at Santa Pod, Nottinghamshire, last weekend. The table, named "Fast Food", reached a top speed of 130mph and averaged 113.8mph, comfortably eclipsing the 92mph set by a sofa in 2007.
<!-- BEFORE ACI --> Mr Watkins expects to become the official world record holder for the fastest piece of furniture when his time is accepted by Guinness. A 1994 Reliant Scimitar Sabre underneath the table, boosted by a nitrous oxide kit, provides the thrust for the makeshift vehicle.
Mr Watkins, who has put together a number of unusual cars with his own hands, said Fast Food took about a year to build in his garage. He was previously the holder of the record for the world's lowest car and can still lay claim to having built the smallest car ever made, by attaching a 150cc engine to a Postman Pat toy van. He said of his latest achievement: "It was actually worse than I thought it would be. It felt like 200mph."
