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Gareth Mitchell looks at the need for speed in transport.

Ever since the futurist cultural movement, which started in Europe in the early 20th Century, humans have been obsessed with the notion of travelling from A to B as quickly as possible.

The culmination of this fascination with speed came with the maiden flight of Concorde, the supersonic plane in 1969, which ought to have launched a new generation of fast global transport.

But Concorde was taken out of service in 2003, and the fashion for breaking speed records seems to be over, too: The world air speed record of 2,193mph has remained unchanged since 1976 and the land speed record was set in 1997 at 763mph.

So do humans still have a need for speed, or has the pace of modern life just increased our stress levels?

Gareth travels to El Mirage dry lake bed in the Californian desert, where 'hot rodding' was born. These amateur car mechanics and drivers spend all winter modifying their cars to prepare for ‘speed season’ when they race across the desert as fast a possible, trying to break local records.

Gareth also meets land speed record holder Sir Richard Noble, who helped create Thrust SSC, the supersonic car. What’s it like driving the fastest car on Earth?