It has been confirmed that the real-life Bloodhound SSC will celebrate its world debut on the morning of September 24th. The unveiling of the completed world land speed record challenging supersonic car will come after years of renderings and show cars.
Once development of the car is completed, the Bloodhound team at the Hakskeen Pan in South Africa hopes to beat the current world land speed record at 1227 km/h set by Andy Green back in 1997. The following year, it is hoped that Bloodhound SSC will be able to exceed 1609 km/h (1000 mph). Behind the wheel once again will be wing commander Andy Greene.
Discussing the car’s upcoming unveiling, Bloodhound SSC chief engineer Mark Chapman said “For the last few years we’ve had plastic models, CGI, and last Christmas we showed a sort of Airfix Kit of all the bits we had, but this will be 98 percent the finished car. There’s a couple of bits we’re still waiting on – a few airbrake parts, for example – and then we’re all ready to run and go testing. It’s less shiny and a bit bumpier [than the show cars] and you’ll be able to see the gaps between the panels, the hatches, the imperfections, and its character. It’s all getting close now. For the first time in my eight years with this project, this is the real thing.”
Powering Bloodhound is a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine from the Eurofighter jet fighter as well as hybrid rockets from Nammo. Those rockets are powered by hydrogen peroxide oxidizer which is fed by the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 from the Jaguar F-Type R Coupe delivering 550 hp!
