Thrust SSC 25 Years Ago!

Still the only supersonic car and unlikely to ever be beaten

It was then and is now an amazing and just about unbeatable achievement.

While there are plenty of people working on cars, that they say can do the same, none have even made a first attempt yet.

I’m worried that Bloodhound may never re-surface – yet it’s the only car I WANT to see beat Thrust SSC.

I don’t think Bloodhound will run again, it’s way too expensive.

Aussie Invader seem to be the only other contender, but have yet to do anything in terms of running.

I remember when it happened and that it was front page news around the world, seen the car in Coventry too. It’s smaller in person than you think but those engines still completely dominate the whole thing!

I’m worried that Bloodhound may never re-surface – yet it’s the only car I WANT to see beat Thrust SSC.

The current multiple crises and the fact that the world is moving away from fossil fuels is, I fear, the ultimate failure point of the Bloodhound project. Really, really sad as I’ve supported it from the beginning. I’ve got mine and my dad’s names on the fins, went to a few of the build process open days before and after the buyout and went to the open day they did shortly after returning from their test runs where they clocked over 600mph. I even have a mug, flask and keychain with the Bloodhound logos on them. They said at the time they only needed £5m to go back and go for the record, aiming for 800mph, with the Nammo rocket and another £5m to go back and push the car’s limit past the 900mph mark. That’s probably more like £7-10m for each stage now and without someone wanting to privately fund it I very much doubt any company or groups will see any value in it. If they had managed to get it running in the desert around 2012-13 then they would have got the record but the various delays, funding issues and infighting they suffered have pushed them back too far.

Some more detail here:

Amazing stuff!

Thrust was/is a stunning achievement and brilliant bit of engineering.

The book Thrust, is great. Which reminds to restart the Richard Noble book Take Risk covering his various projects.
@relcutantjumper my name is on the tail fin of bloodhound too!

Iirc Bloodhound is still one of the fastest lsr vehicles ever built, even though it was pretty hobbled when it ran.

I think the lsr teams are switching to sustainable/net zero projects now which will be easier to get support for, but I expect it’ll be a while before they’re challenging the fossil fuel records.

Quite possible in the future electric motors will produce more power than fossil fuel ones. Currently the top speed of an Ecar is 1/2 that of the Thrust SSC

@P20 – there was a PSA on here about them doing a fresh set of names for the fin and I bought one for my dad as a birthday present (he loved it) so I got one for myself too.

@dyna-ti – Electric will be traction limited like current wheel-driven ones are for a while yet. Once electric motors can compete with jet engines and create thrust in equivalent amounts then the switch will happen for the outright record.

Iirc Bloodhound is still one of the fastest lsr vehicles ever built, even though it was pretty hobbled when it ran.

3rd fastest ever but as it was only in one direction it is unofficial. They said at the open day on their return that they weren’t going for any official speeds so hadn’t taken any equipment to do a return run in any case. They aimed for 600mph as a top goal with just the engine installed but on one run the GPS speedo screen froze and Andy Greene held the throttle open for a bit too long hence hitting 628, just 5 short of Thrust 2 and he said that it was still accelerating strongly.