Bad news for land-speed record fans as Bloodhound goes up for sale

Enlarge / Bloodhound LSR made it to South Africa in 2019 to begin high-speed testing, but only with its single jet engine. (credit: Charlie Sperring/Bloodhound LSR)

Bad news, land-speed record fans: the project to set a new 1,000mph (1,609km/h) speed record is yet again in serious doubt. On Monday morning, the Bloodhound Land Speed Record Project revealed that it's looking for a new owner in order to try and break the existing record. Whoever steps in will need pretty deep pockets, too-almost $11 million (8 million), in fact.

Trying to set a new land-speed record is probably one of the harder activities one can engage in. You need to design and build a vehicle capable of going faster than 763mph (1,228km/h), twice within an hour. You need to find somewhere flat enough to run the car, presumably away from neighbors who might get annoyed by the window-shattering sonic booms. And while all that sounds like a serious challenge, perhaps the biggest problem is finding the money to make it all happen.

Bloodhound LSR-formerly Bloodhound SSC-certainly has the pedigree to break the record. It was the brainchild of Richard Noble, who also masterminded the last two successful land-speed-record attempts. (Noble was even behind the wheel for the 1982 record.) Chief aerodynamicist Ron Ayers is another veteran, having designed Thrust SSC before Bloodhound. And the project identified and prepared an 8.5-square mile (22km^2) stretch of South Africa's Hakskeen Pan to conduct the attempt.

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