The 1,000 mph Car

The land speed record has been a coveted prize for over a century. It all began in 1898 when Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat set the benchmark for a wheeled vehicle at 39.24 mph, presumably while also enjoying a leisurely cup of tea and a good book. Thirty days later, Camille Jenatzy shattered his record by racing at a truly blistering 41.42 mph. Since those days the land speed record has been reset a few times, and the has been bar raised a bit. The current record is Wing Commander Andy Green’s 763.035 mph ride through the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, set in 1997.

Mr Green’s record stood a lot longer than Gaston’s, and now he intends to break it himself, aboard the BLOODHOUND Supersonic Car. Previous attempts to break the land speed record have generally tried to do so by a margin of ten or twenty miles per hour, but the BLOODHOUND team is a bit more ambitious. Their goal is to build a car capable of traveling 1,000 miles per hour.

The BLOODHOUND is powered by three engines: a Eurojet EJ200, a custom-made hybrid rocket, and a Cosworth CA2010 Formula 1 V8, which operate in stages like a kind of horizontal rocket ship. The EJ200 brings the car to 300 miles per hour. Once it reaches that speed, the hybrid rocket fires, propelling the car to 1000 miles per hour. Throughout the entire process, the Formula 1 engine provides auxiliary power to the rocket’s oxidizer pump

As you can imagine driving at supersonic speeds puts a lot of stress on the car, and requires plenty of specially designed components. One of the most impressive aspects of the BLOODHOUND is its hybrid body. Over the course of its development, a team from Swansea University’s College of Engineering has refined the car’s aerodynamic form through the use of computational fluid dynamics. Their results led the BLOODHOUND’s designers to make the forward section from carbon fiber, while the rear is built around a titanium frame.

Of course, it’s impossible to beat the land speed record for wheeled vehicles in a vehicle that has no wheels, and the BLOODHOUND’s custom-designed, solid aluminum wheels will be under considerable stress for the 42 seconds the car will actually be moving. In fact, each of the car’s three wheels will rotate at 10,200 rpm producing 50,000 Gs of centrifugal force.

Looking at the BLOODHOUND, you can already tell that it’ll soon be the land speed record holder. The only question left is – by how much?

Watch an Animation of the BLOODHOUND SSC in Action:

Images and Video Courtesy of BLOODHOUND SSC