Given that Blighty is the home of ThrustSSC, the 406 mph Peugot and the Mach 0.3 milk float , it comes as no surprise that one intrepid pioneer has bolted a jet engine onto the back of his mother-in-law's wheelchair and fired himself down a runway at 60 mph.

Giuseppe Cannella wowed Bank Holiday crowds at a model plane championship in Lincolnshire with his supercharged vehicle. He told the BBC: "It is just the wheelchair with the engine bolted on the back and steering on the front. Originally it was a gimmick. I had a jet engine and I was going to put it on a go cart.

"But the missus says put it on something unusual and so I put it on the mother-in-law's wheelchair. She was on holiday at the time so she didn't know what I was doing until she came back."

Mercifully, Mr Guiseppe's mother-in-law had already bought a new set of wheels before her old jalopy got a touch of the Right Stuff. Cannella says he will use the vehicle to raise cash for the Parkinson's Disease Society. ®

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