Name of the Project
Bloodhound Land Speed Record (LSR).

Location
UK, and South Africa's Northern Cape province.

Project Owner/s
Grafton LSR.

Project Description
The project involves the construction of, possibly, the world’s fastest car.

The Bloodhound LSR car is an amalgamation of car and aircraft technology, with the front half being a carbon-fibre monocoque, similar to that of a racing car, and the back half being a metallic frame, with panels like those of an aircraft. It is expected to reach more than 1 600 km/h – faster than a (speeding)? bullet. The current record is 1 227.9 km/h.

The car, which is 13.5 m long and weighs 5.5 t, is powered by a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine and will eventually include a Nammo rocket.  The car will have two front wheels mounted within the body and two rear wheels mounted externally within the wheel fairings. The metal wheels are designed to rotate 170 times a second.

The front of the car is made from carbon fibre, while the rear is made from aerospace-grade aluminium and other composites to support the engine and, eventually, the rocket.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Capital Expenditure
R515-million.

Planned Start/End Date
The Bloodhound team announced in May 2018 that it expected to race in South Africa in 2019, slowly ramping up to tacklebreak? the 1 600 km/h record in October or November.

Latest Developments
The Bloodhound LSR attempt has gone into hibernation to reduce the monthly overheads to an absolute minimum.

Following successful high-speed testing in South Africa in October and November 2019, the Bloodhound LSR has been focused on securing sponsorship to further fund its world land-speed record campaign, CEO Ian Warhurst has said. 

“We had a finite timeline in which we had to secure investment . . . to return to South Africa during the cool weather in the third quarter of 2021 to challenge the land-speed record.

“Discussions with a number of global brands were looking promising when Covid-19 struck and the sponsorship industry literally shut down. 

“This means our ability to raise the necessary funds in time and, consequently, the window to conduct the land-speed record campaign safely in 2021 is now very likely to be missed.”

Conversations with potential sponsors to provide the project with vital funding to cover the costs of the unplanned hibernation period, are expected to restart later this year.

In 2019, activities at the 16-km-long track in Hakskeenpan, in the Northern Cape, were about gathering information, testing equipment and getting a feel for how the Bloodhound car interacted with the desert surface and the climate. The Bloodhound team still managed a very respectable maximum speed of 1 010 km/h while doing all of this.

“There is still some work to do to enable the car to reach speeds over 800 mph [1 287 km/h] safely,” Warhurst has indicated.

This includes the development of a new zero-carbon-emission rocket, a revised jet fuel system, fitting winglets to the tail fin and building the supporting ancillary equipment needed for fuelling the rocket and completing two runs down the desert within an hour, as required by the record books.
 
Key Contracts and Suppliers
Castrol (lubricants, brake and hydraulic fluids), Poynting (antennas).

On Budget and on Time?
Project Bloodhound is again active under new ownership, after having been briefly halted, owing to a lack of funds.

Contact Details for Project Information
Grafton LSR, email info@graftonlsr.com.