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World’s fastest car makes its world debut
The Bristol-built Bloodhound SSC is the world’s fastest and most advanced racing car by a long shot – able to cover four and a half football pitches in the space of a second – and it’s now on public display for the first time in London’s Canary Wharf.
Spending the last two years of its life on an industrial estate in Bedminster, the Land Speed Racer is the product of eight years of research, design and manufacturing, with the input of more than 350 companies and universities.
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.
At the free exhibition visitors will be invited to look inside the finished cockpit – a huge and complex monocoque crafted from multiple layers of carbon fibre. Inside, there is a sophisticated digital dashboard, designed by the driver, as well as manual back-ups for the major controls should something go wrong.
With three separate braking systems, seven fire extinguishers and 500 sensors, safety has been a key focus throughout the building process, which received input from aerospace experts and engineers from the RAFs 71 Squadron amongst many others.
The Bloodhound team will race for their first record next year in South Africa, and thanks to several cameras set up around the cockpit, audiences will be able to enjoy the same view as driver Andy Green during the run.
Sharing the experience in this way is a core principle of the project, central to its mission to inspire a future generation and get them excited about science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
For more information, visit www.bloodhoundssc.com.
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