Scientists at work: designing the fastest car on the planet
Apart from a brief break in the 1960s and 1970s, British engineering and drivers have played a dominant role in setting the land speed record in the fastest cars on the planet. Starting from Lydston Hornsted’s Benz No. 3, which broke the record to reach 124mph exactly 100 years ago, to the current land-speed-record holder Andy Green’s Thrust SSC, which crossed the supersonic barrier to reach 763mph in 1997. Now the people behind Thrust SSC have set themselves an even more challenging target to reach the land speed record of 1,000 mph in a new car called Bloodhound SSC. The target date for achieving it is 2016 and it will be attempted in the Hakskeen Pan in South Africa, where they have created a track that is 12 miles long and two miles wide. The hope in doing this is to inspire a new generation of British engineers and scientists, promote British...