1000mph land speed record

How to make a car that goes at Mach 1.4

There are some things the Brits just love doing. Propelling themselves hell-for-leather over salt flats on four wheels seems to be one of them. That's what Richard Noble and Andy Green, holders of the current land speed record, plan for their spare time over the next year or so, as they begin building the Bloodhound.

A thin, dart-like car is what it looks like - but there the car comparisons end. Sure, there's a V12 800bhp race engine onboard. But the real power comes from its jet engine, taken from the Eurofighter Typhoon jet - and a rocket. When the rocket switches on, the car will achieve huge speeds, but the jet engine needs to provide some element of control: once a rocket is activated, it's on or off; there's nothing in between.

This combination of ultimate power, the Bloodhound team hopes, will propel the car and its driver to at least 1000mph. That's a 31% increase on the current record - currently held by Andy Green. His last peak speed was back in 1997 driving the turbofan-jet car ThrustSSC, hitting 766 and breaking the sound barrier in a car for the first time ever.

All the designs and maths is done and on the table. Construction begins on the Bloodhound right now. Environmentalists who may wonder just why we should be getting excited about a jet-fuel guzzling megacar might like to take a peek at the CO2 calculations on the Bloodhound's website. Thanks to the clever mix of engine fuels and burn times, they claim the first car to break 1000mph will burn through the same amount of greenhouse gases per year as 4.12 cows.

Find out more here www.bloodhoundssc.com