Supersonic Car

The Bloodhound supersonic car project is back on and now aims to break the land speed record in October 2017.

13:16 05 July 2016

The development of Bloodhound supersonic car was put on hold in recent months due to lack of funds. However, new sponsorship deals are now putting the project back on track.

 

The project aims to break the land speed record (1,228km/h) that was set by Thust SSC in the US desert on October 1997. Bloodhound intends to raise this to 800mph, running in South Africa.

"We now have the most vision of forward-funding that we've ever had," said components chief Conor La Grue.

 

"In the past, we've only ever really had funding to plan two to three months ahead.

"We're now in a position to go all the way through to taking the record."

 

Outstanding components that are needed to complete the vehicle have been ordered while engineers that were let go when the project was on hold are being brought back.

 

The car, which was showcased at Canary Wharf in London last September, will be stripped down from its initial dry build and then reassembled with fluids.

 

Chief engineer Mark Chapman, said: "We're talking now about being in South Africa in August/September 2017. This would give us a few weeks of running to shake the car down, increase the speed and then go for the record around October.

 

"The date would be quite poignant because it would be exactly 20 years since Thrust SSC."