Ever since the Land Speed Record was first broken by a car driven by an internal-combustion powered car 110 years ago, the outright record has been held by an American or British driver. (Prior to 1902 the record was held by electric or steam powered cars.)

Piston-powered cars ran out of steam in 1947 when John Cobb upped the record to 394 mph. Donald Campbell finally broke through the 400-mph barrier in the turbine-powered Bluebird in 1964. Since then the outright record has been held by jet- or rocket-powered non-wheel-driven cars.The current record has been held by Brit Andy Green since 1997 when he broke the sound barrier in ThrustSSC with a speed of 763 mph over one mile at Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

Now the goal is to break the 1000-mph barrier.

There are two teams vying to achieve this goal – Bloodhound SSC from Britain, with Andy Green as the driver again, and Aussie Invader, to be driven and built by Rosco McGlashen, who holds the current Australian Land Speed record of 500 mph.

The Bloodhound SSC team has garnered plenty of publicity in the last couple of years in Britain but the battle between the Aussies and Brits appeared as a front page story on the BBC’s website on Tuesday.

The Aussie Invader 5R will rely on just a single 200,000-hp rocket engine but the Bloodhound SSC will be powered by both a rocket and jet engine. What’s more Bloodhound SSC will also include a Cosworth F1 engine that will function as a 700-hp pump to get fuel to the rocket!

Both teams are currently building their cars and both plan to have them running later this year so they can go much faster than a bullet when they aim for 1000 mph sometime next year. You can find fascinating information and photographs of Bloodhound SSC and Aussie Invader on their respective websites.

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