How to build a world land speed record car

In January this year the team behind Britain's latest tilt at the world land speed record showed us the 3500-plus parts it takes to build the Bloodhound SSC – the 135,000hp supersonic car with which it will attempt to hit 1000mph next year.

Now it brings us a video outlining exactly how those parts come together – in 90 seconds of time-lapse footage – to create what it hopes will become the world's fastest car.

As we've reported, many of the parts are custom-made, including a state-of-the-art Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine normally found in the Eurofighter Typhoon and a cluster of Nammo hybrid rockets, which were developed to power the next generation of space launchers and recently completed a successful initial test in Norway.

There's also a 410kW supercharged Jaguar V8 used to pump oxidiser into the rocket, two unique Rolex instruments specially made for Bloodhound, the car's titanium skinned upper chassis and its carbon-fibre monocoque and canopy with 50mm thick windscreen and 22,500 aerospace-grade hand-fixed rivets, plus driver Andy Green.

The Bloodhound Project claims 110 man-years have been invested in the design, build and manufacture of the Bloodhound SSC, which is on track to challenge the world land speed record (WLSR) later this year in Africa's Kalahari Desert.

The Bristol-based UK team reckons it scoured the globe to find the perfect desert for its newest attempt — given it needed to be at least 12 miles (19km) long, two miles (3km) wide and perfectly flat – and the result is the Hakskeen Pan in the Northern Cape of South Africa.

It says it's on schedule for UK runway testing up to 200mph (321km/h) at the Aerohub, Newquay, before the team deploys to South Africa with the target of reaching 800mph (1287km/h). It will then return to the UK to review the data, before returning to South Africa in 2016 with a 1000mph (1609 km/h) target.

Led by Richard Noble, the UK-based Bloodhound team's Thrust SSC set a new WLSR of 763mph (1223km/h) in 1997, breaking the 633mph (1019km/h) mark set by Noble in Thrust 2 in 1983, when Britain claimed the land speed record from the US.

Bloodhound SSC is just one of three cars aiming to set a new WLSR, with teams from Australia and North America prepped to continue a three-nation battle that started in 1964.

That's when Donald Campbell, the son of legendary 1920s and 30s drag racer Sir Malcolm Campbell, set a new WLSR on a dry Lake Eyre in South Australia, making history by setting world speed records on both land and water.

Australia's latest WLSR attempt is being driven by Rosco McGlashan, who broke Donald Campbell's Australian land speed record with Aussie Invader II at 500mph (802km/h) in 1994, and then crashed at nearly 600mph trying to raise it further.

McGlashan went faster than the day's WLSR with a one-way pass of 638mph (1028km/h) in Aussie Invader III in 1996, but bad weather prevented a return run and, when Thrust SSC hit 763mph (1223km/h) in the hands of Green the following year, his car became redundant.

While a new USA/Canada team, North American Eagle, has completed a car to challenge the 763mph/1223km/h WLSR, the Aussies and Brits are both readying cars capable of reaching over 1000mph (1609km/h) – and McGlashan's is the most powerful.

Able to cover a mile (1.6km) in 3.6 seconds at top speed, Bloodhound SSC is claimed to generate 135,000 thrust horsepower (96,980kW) – the equivalent of 180 Formula One cars.

However, McGlashan's rocket-powered Aussie Invader 5R employs a New Zealand-developed bi-propellant liquid oxygen (LOx) rocket motor that generates 62,000 pounds of thrust and is estimated to have a total power output of 200,000hp (149,200kW), making it the most powerful WLSR car ever built.

With it, McGlashan hopes to achieve four main objectives: break the sound barrier, set a new Australian LSR, a new WLSR and reach a speed of more than 1000mph.