HARROW: A scheme to make a record-breaking car capable of reaching 1,000mph faces “massive struggles” for money. Richard Noble, the man behind the Bloodhound SSC project, has admitted in his latest blog they need to spend £10m this year which they do not have.
“It’s going to be the usual hand-to-mouth fight for existence,” he wrote.
The Bristol-based team is vying to break the world land-speed record with a car powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine.
The current record of 763mph (1,230km/h) was set by RAF Wing Commander Andy Green in Thrust SSC in 1997.
He will be behind the controls of the Bloodhound SSC (Super Sonic Car) when it attempts to break the record at the end of this year, and then to go even faster in 2016.
But Mr Noble, the project’s director who broke the land speed record in Thrust2 in 1983, has written of his concerns for the future of the bid without more commercial sponsors.
He described “massive struggles to meet the huge financial demands” behind the scenes and said the project’s banking team had “never seen anything quite like Bloodhound”.
However, financial trouble was overcome in 2014 and – even though they are four years beyond the original schedule – the team is now confident 2015 will be the year the car runs on Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, South Africa.
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