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Bloodhound LSR is on sale. Ian Warhurst, the man who saved the project from junk two years ago and took it to 628 mph in South Africa, has announced a latest offer from sponsors or new owners.
“When I made the commitment to do high-speed testing on the car in 2019, I allocated enough funds to achieve this goal, because alternative funding would then allow us to continue the record attempts. Along with many other things, the global pandemic has destroyed that opportunity… and in the absence of immediate additional funding, the only options left are to shut down the program or put the project up for sale.
Grafton LSR, the holding company that owns the car and the project, estimates that £ 8million would bring the car back to South Africa and take it past 800 mph. “Now is the time for someone to step in at the last minute and win the award,” Warhurst told TG. “After all that has been done and all the money that has been spent on it, there’s just this last funding and then that’s it, you have the bottom line.
The car proved its worth in testing at Hakskeen Pan in November 2019, when it only used its Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine. The next step, factored into the £ 8million budget, is to run the car with the additional Nammo rocket motor and take the record past the 763mph mark achieved by Thrust SSC (the first car to cross the sound barrier) in 1997.
After going through various iterations, Bloodhound now has an electric motor to drive the rocket motor’s fuel pump. “The next step in the project is really the rush. In order to be able to run the rocket motor as we intended, you need the very latest technology with electric motors and battery power. Everything is really state of the art so it was really a bit exciting.
Warhurst is either seeking sponsorship to help get the project back on track and in South Africa in 2022, or to wholesale the project. What is his instinct? “I think someone will come and fund it. Or he goes to a museum – it’s plan B. “
“The schedule is tight,” he adds, “it’s really the next two months. If we push further than this we won’t be able to get out [to South Africa] next year. If it goes to 2023, it’s expensive to sit still for 12 months and to be fair the project needs its own conclusion. “
So that’s it people. We’ve been here before – when Warhurst stepped in and put the project through for testing – and now it needs an extra injection of money to take it past 800mph.
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