Blub the Goldfish Drives Its Way Into Guinness World Record Book With Motion-Sensing Car
“Normally my job is quite monotonous, so I wanted to create something that would entertain people.”
Sometimes the best stories are the ones that make you smile before you even finish the headline. This is one of those stories.
A goldfish named Blub has officially set a Guinness World Record—for driving a car.
Yes, you read that right. A goldfish. Driving a car. And not just puttering around aimlessly, either.
Blub covered 12.28 meters (40 ft 3.46 in) in just 60 seconds, earning the record for the greatest distance covered in a motion-sensing vehicle by a goldfish in one minute.
The minimum distance required to break the record was five meters in one minute, so Blub didn’t just clear the bar — the little fish more than doubled it.
From monotonous work to a fish behind the wheel
The whole delightful idea came from Thomas de Wolf, a computer engineer from the Netherlands who decided his day job could use a little more fun.
“Normally my job is quite monotonous, so I wanted to create something that would entertain people, turning my ‘serious’ job into something fun,” de Wolf told Guinness.
And entertain people he did. De Wolf built a small vehicle equipped with a water tank and a motion-sensing camera system.
The concept is surprisingly straightforward: when the goldfish swims in a particular direction inside the tank, the camera detects that movement, and the vehicle follows suit, rolling in the same direction.
The system even works in reverse—any direction Blub swam counted toward the record distance.
There was one important technical requirement, though. The motion-sensing system requires a bright red fish for accurate tracking. That’s where Blub, an Italian goldfish, turned out to be the perfect candidate.
Bright, red, and apparently born to drive.
Lights, camera, goldfish
The record attempt didn’t take place in some quiet laboratory. It happened on the Italian TV show Lo Show Dei Record in Milan, with a live studio audience watching a goldfish make history.
Guinness World Records adjudicator Sofia Greenacre oversaw the attempt to make sure everything was official and above board. The distance was calculated by counting how many times a colored mark on each wheel touched the ground—a charmingly low-tech measurement method for such a high-tech contraption.
The audience cheered enthusiastically for Blub as the little fish swam—and drove—past the required distance.
Italian TV presenter Gerry Scotti captured the mood perfectly, describing the moment as “very sweet and very futuristic.”
It’s hard to argue with that.
As amusing as the whole spectacle is, de Wolf sees a bigger picture behind his fish-powered vehicle. He views the project as a way to show people what technology can accomplish, even when the application isn’t exactly conventional.
“The objective is to show people what is possible to achieve with this kind of technology, even when it’s not necessarily something ‘serious,’” he told Guinness.
De Wolf noted that the concept could potentially be adapted to help people with mobility issues—a reminder that playful innovation and meaningful progress aren’t mutually exclusive.
A record holder who doesn’t even know it (yet)
The record was officially awarded to both de Wolf and Blub, making the goldfish one of the more unusual title holders in the long history of Guinness World Records.
De Wolf, for his part, seemed to appreciate the absurdity of the whole situation.
“How am I going to explain to Blub now that he has a world record title?” de Wolf joked.
Something tells us Blub will take the news in stride—or rather, in swim. After all, this is a fish who drove a car on live television in front of a cheering audience in Milan. A little thing like a world record title is probably just another lap around the tank.
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