The 1,000mph (1,609kph) Bloodhound land speed record project is over
The dream is over. Today, the administrators for Bloodhound, the British project to break the land speed record, have announced that a buyer cannot be found, and that the project will be wound up.
The firm entered administration two months ago, the aim being to find a buyer able to inject the £25 million the team believed was needed to take the rocket-and-jet powered car to South Africa and run it. Unfortunately, although several potential buyers came forward, that process failed.
The administrators issued a release saying: “Despite overwhelming public support, and engagement with a wide range of potential and credible investors, it has not been possible to secure a purchaser for the business and assets.
“We will now work with key stakeholders to return the third-party equipment and then sell the remaining assets of the company to maximise the return for creditors.”
It’s a sad end for an ambitious undertaking that wasn’t just about sending a car as fast as possible across a desert – that could be dismissed as a vanity project. Instead it aimed – and succeeded – at inspiring the next generation of engineers and scientists. Over the last ten years the Bloodhound educational programme has engaged with over two million children – over 120,000 every year in the UK alone.
So that’s it. This could be the moment the Land Speed Record fades with a whimper, it’s existence an anachronism in the age of enlightened electric motoring. Is this the end of the line? Will the fastest a car ever travels remain the 763.035mph (1,227.986kph) set by Thrust SSC back in 1997? And if so, do you care?
