The need for speed isn't the same for everybody. So, when Tom Bruch of Cedar Rapids says he drove more than 100 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats, where other cars have surpassed 700 mph, you might not be impressed.

Tom drove a 1966 VW Beetle.

The car's engine, at less than 1.4 liters with 36 horsepower, is smaller than most anything sold in a car today.

The speed of 103.497 mph broke a 47-year-old record.

"Actually," Tom says, "this is like going 100 miles per hour on your garden tractor."

To borrow the slogan of another popular make, "Zoom, zoom."

Tom, 74, has been working four years to break this record. But he's actually driven Volkswagens fast for decades.

In 1956, when he was young and crazy, Tom climbed into his 1956 Beetle, drove it to Bonneville, raced it, then... // Gazette Online