Stand aside Superman

[PRBuzz]

for a car faster than a speeding bullet!

Formula 1 is seen as the apogee of engineering excellence and automotive power. So it says something that in Bloodhound SSC — the car that, if all goes well, in 2013 will shatter the current land speed record — the Cosworth Formula 1 engine is just the fuel pump.

“We are creating the ultimate car; we’re going where no-one has gone before,” said Richard Noble, the project director.

The car, which Mr. Noble says takes £10,000 a day just to keep it ticking over, will be powered by not one, but two other engines. The smaller one, the EJ200, is normally found in the British Royal Air Force’s Typhoon jet. Its job is to get the 13.4 meter long car up to 350 miles per hour.

That’s when the big one kicks in. The big one is the 18-inch diameter, 12-foot-long Falcon rocket, the largest of its kind ever made in the U.K. Its job is to catapult the car through the sound barrier to its maximum speed of 1,050 mph. That is, literally, faster than a speeding bullet.

To get there, the Cosworth CA2010 engine has to inject one ton of fuel into the rocket within 20 seconds. That’s why you need an F1 engine as a fuel pump. Cosworth is also providing the rocket control system which will manage the ignition, fuel supply and shutdown of the Falcon rocket. The Northampton-based company is also providing the telemetric system.

The triumvirate of power together form the most powerful land vehicle ever built.

[FishermanTim]

Whoever pilots that thing will be one of 2 things: the guy with the biggest balls in the world, or... a stain on the back of the cockpit!

Wasn't that the vehicle used in that "Buckaroo Bonzai" movie?
Is the rocket just a glorified version of the "over-thruster" from same movie?

If we already have planes that can break the sound barrier, what possible good will we learn from having a car do the same?
Maybe it'll give the car manufacturers a gimmick for the 2012 lines.
You know, REAL muscle cars, powered by rocket fuel, not that sissiy petrol that the "regular" people use.

Frankly, I see three possible different scenarios with this rocket-on-wheels:
It blows up on ignition of the "big" engine or....
it plows into a mountain, hillside or some other structure because they didn't plan on stopping it, just getting it to go, or......
It pulls a Wiley E Coyote and blast off into orbit.

Love that ACME rocket company!!!!