In a bid to stay afloat, the Bloodhound Land Speed Record (LSR) project has announced that it is looking for a new driver with the right experience and expertise to pilot its rocket-propelled car to a new land-speed record at Hakskeenpan in the Kalahari.
Crucially, the new driver must be able to contribute approximately £12 million (R283 million) to the cause for the honour of being the one behind the wheel. The previous driver, Andy Green, who 26 years ago set the current land-speed record of 763mph (1,228km/h) in the Thrust SSC supersonic, will remain a key member of the team and remain on to support and mentor the new driver.
The Bloodhound LSR campaign has been plagued with funding problems since almost the very beginning due to the mammoth task of setting a new land-speed record and the costs associated with that.
What’s more, the speed of sound has already been broken on land, so the appeal of setting a new historical high has lost much of its appeal.
Bloodhound was always focused on boosting interest and education in the sciences as well as researching cutting-edge technologies and materials, but seeing as this isn’t all that profitable, it makes it tough to justify to capital funds and large corporations that are asked to invest in it.
The project was therefore put into administration in 2018, and listed for sale in 2021. While it’s still on the market, it is actively looking for any form of sponsorships, partnerships, and investment that will enable it to reach its goal.
This goal was to surpass the magical 1,000mph (1,609km/h) barrier when Bloodhound was announced all the way back in 2008, but it has since been revised to 800mph (1,287km/h), a mere 37mph (60km/h) higher than the current record, speaking volumes to the difficulty of the mission.
“We are extremely confident; the team, track, and car have already been proven during our high-speed testing (where we achieved 628mph),” said the organisation.
“The only hurdle that stands in our way is raising the required funding; we hope that this new opportunity will attract the investment/sponsorship required.”
The team is currently busy with a roadshow of a full-scale replica of the Bloodhound LSR car in the UK in an effort to attract investors, and it will only return to the Northern Cape once it has secured the needed funding.
After it has toppled 800mph, the organisation will set its sights on 1,000mph once more if, and only if, “the technical requirements are considered feasible, whether sponsors want to be involved again, and, of course, whether it’s considered safe.”
Bloodhound goes green
Even Bloodhound hasn’t been immune to changes in the automotive industry in recent years and parts of its powertrain which in the beginning ran on fossil fuels are now powered by electrons.
Much of the new driver’s cash injection will go to installing a new environmentally-friendly rocket system that includes a battery pack and electric motor to drive the rocket pump, which will replace the current Nammo rocket that burns specialised fossil fuels.
As opposed to using bio-fuels to power the new rocket, it will instead run on synthetic e-fuels, such as those being piloted by Porsche.
“As an engineer, I think the challenge is awesome, but I’ve also realised we’ve got to distance ourselves from the image we have, quite rightly, that burning fossil fuels is not appropriate to the era we live in, Bloodhound Wing Commander Stuart Edmondson told Driving.co.uk.
“So I’m doing it for three reasons: it’s the right thing to do, the engineering challenge, but also to increase the attractiveness of any investor. We have had investors turn away and go, ‘I can’t be associated with that. I’ve got lots of money, but that’s not green’.”
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