We visited the British rocket car that will attempt to set a 1,000 mph land speed record

Max Slater-Robins / BI

Sometime in 2017, the Bloodhound SSC could become the fastest car in the world. The previous record was set in 1997 by the Thrust SSC, driven by Wing Commander Andy Green, after the car achieved a "flying mile" speed of 763mph (1,227kph). This number, while impressive, fades when you hear the goal of the Bloodhound team: 1,000 mph, on land.

Getting to 1,000 mph (approximately Mach 1.3) is not a new feat for mankind - the fastest a human has ever travelled is over 24,000mph or Mach 31.5 - but problems occur when that speed is attempted on land. So far, no one has got anywhere close.

The Bristol-based Bloodhound team has spent the past decade working on the SSC, creating an entirely new educational curriculum aimed at re-inspiring UK youths into the sciences in the process. Due to the complexity of modelling the forces exerted on a vehicle at 1,000 mph, the team has relied heavily on computational analysis, breaking new ground, the knowledge gleaned from which has been shared globally.

Led by Richard Noble, the man responsible for almost all of the fastest speed runs in living memory, the team aims to create a car that is capable of not just exceeding the previous record, but adding on another 250 mph. What they are effectively doing is taking the world's fastest car, the Thrust SSC, and adding on the speed of the world's fastest production car, the Bugati Veyron Super Sport.

Here's what it looks like.