Three years of aerodynamics research has created the Bloodhound supersonic car design, unveiled recently at Farnborough:
It looks just like The Blue Flame to me, which set the land speed record in 1970.
The Blue Flame reached 1014.513 km/h (630.388 mph), a record that lasted 27 years.
This post might reveal my lack of expertise in rocket cars, I realize, but I had hoped for a much more radical design than just a rocket with wheels. The Thrust2 and ThrustSSC broke The Blue Flame record but they also did it with new designs. The Thrust2 looked like the BatMobile. The ThrustSSC looked like an F-4 fighter jet without wings, perhaps because that is what it was.
When I say I want to see a more radical design I really wonder about efficiency. How much fuel is used to reach these speeds? What would the records look like if they had to account for input? I have similar questions about output in terms of emissions and air quality.
Nice post this.
However, The Blue Flame was much more than just a rocket on wheels. The car and rocket system were designed and scratch-built specifically for the job of setting a supersonic world land speed record.