While this is the sort of stunt “old TopGear” would pull, watching Martin Brundle pin the 550 PS supercharged Jaguar XJR against a real-life ‘Centurion’ is pretty fun.
Remember that old sci-fi animated TV series called ‘The Centurions’? It was about a bunch of guys wearing these cool power suits that basically allowed them to fly and do all sorts of other stuff that you could only do while playing pretend.
The thing is, don’t tell Yves Rossy that he’s pretending to do anything, because this man has a genuine multi-engined jet-pack/wing strapped to his back, which pretty much makes him the fastest man in the sky.
Rossy describes his “powered wing” as being able to hit 300 km/h (186 mph) thanks to the four Jet-Cat P200 engines and the carbon fiber construction. The Jaguar XJR isn’t far off its pace, but with a top speed of 280 km/h (173 mph), it’s obviously at a disadvantage.
Besides, after jumping out of the helicopter and giving Brundle the old “3-2-1 Go” routine, the powered wing was already accelerating a lot faster than the automobile (which was stationary). In fact, no car on Earth could get up to speed that fast, compared to an object that’s suddenly accelerating forward as it’s falling from the sky.
There’s no way to tell for certain how fast the Jetman was accelerating once he began moving horizontally, so just enjoy the race.