Supersonic auto unveiled in London

Created to be the fastest vehicle on the planet, the Bloodhound SSC comes with some serious pedigree. “You have air brakes that are just forward of the real wheels, so they will deploy once you get below 200mph”, said Dineen. A fitting salute which marries the pioneering spirit of the past with the advanced technologies and processes of today.

The project, started eight years ago by a small team at the University of the West of England with the aim to attract more young people to engineering, has brought together 280 global companies including Rolls-Royce, Jaguar and Rolex. And it won’t be long before we’ll be able to see what this beast looks like on the move. Underneath the hood lies a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine, not to mention a supercharged Jaguar V8 engine which will powera pump for the Nammo rocket motor that was pieced together by the Royal Space Agency.

Also exposed is the intricate carbon fibre, steel and alloy chassis along with the complex internal skeleton of Bloodhound’s huge tail-fin.

Bloodhound SSC wasn’t the only vehicle on show at the exhibition, and with this project even the support vehicles are something special.

Bloodhound has three separate braking systems, seven fire extinguishers and 500 sensors, twice as many as a Formula One auto, so engineers will know exactly how it is performing during each high speed run.

With nine times the power of all the cars in Formula 1 combined, the Bloodhound will attempt to break the current land speed record of 763mph, with hopes to hit 1000mph by 2017.

To date, 6,000 schools across the United Kingdom use Bloodhound technical content in lessons, with more than 2m young people having participated in Bloodhound activities.

The Bloodhound SSC cockpit is frequently referred to as driver Andy Green’s 1,000 miles per hour office, but it’s not your typical cubicle emblazoned with pictures of cute cats.

“It’s awesome to see it like this, away from the workshop and nearly ready to go racing”, said chief engineer Mark Chapman, in a report by BBC News.

“The Bloodhound “…has not been designed “simply” to reach 1 000mph; it must do so safely.

Next up for the Bloodhound – a trip to South Africa to race on a track built especially for this supersonic machine.

Richard Noble, the project’s director and a former land-speed record holder himself, seemed relaxed, but warned of being too complacent about record-breaking.