‘All being well, our simulations suggest we should do 0-1600kph-0 in 85 seconds.’ Welcome to Bloodhound SSC, Richard Noble’s quest to take the land speed record into four figures.

The statistics are astronomical, as we found out from John Piper, the team’s engineering director. ‘The wheels will have to withstand 50,000g,’ he told us. ‘Andy [Green, the driver] will experience 3g acceleration once we fire the rocket, which delivers an extra 25,000lb of thrust.’

Unlike the twin-jet Thrust SSC, with which Noble and Green broke the sound barrier, Bloodhound SSC will use the jet engine from a Eurofighter Typhoon to reach 500kph, then a rocket will join in for the big push to the target speed of 1700kph. In just 1min 25sec the three-wheeled, 12.8-metre long, 6.4-ton machine will have covered 16 kilometres…

The project was first conceived 18 months ago, and CAD modelling got underway in March. The chief aim isn’t to break the speed record, though. ‘We have a mission statement,’ said Piper. ‘If this doesn’t encourage more kids to get into engineering, then we will have failed.’

At the moment the car exists only on a computer screen, but the team hopes to have Bloodhound assembled by next autumn at their HQ at Filton, near Bristol. They will then take the car up to 320kph on the former RAF runway there, before shipping it out to the record attempt location. Where will that be? ‘Well, neither Bonneville nor Black Rock are suitable now. But we’ve got somewhere in mind,’ Piper told us cheerfully. ‘All we need to do is build a road to get to it! But that’s the least of our worries…’