Thrust SSC
Thrust SSC is a British designed and built jet propelled car developed by Richard Noble and Ron Ayers, which holds the world land speed record. It is powered by two afterburning Rolls-Royce Spey engines, as used in British variants of the F-4 Phantom II. It is 54 ft (16.5 m) long, 12 ft (3.7 m) wide and weighs 10.5 tons.
Where Thrust 2 used a 17,000 pound thrust Rolls-Royce Avon 302 engine from a Lightning fighter, Thrust SSC is the first car to use two turbojets. These will initially be Rolls-Royce Spey 202s from the Phantom fighter, each producing 20,000 pounds of thrust. Richard Noble has acquired two of them, but also has two even more powerful 205 units (25,000lb of thrust) for use when ThrustSSC has proved itself in transonic testing. Thrust SSC thus has the power of 1000 Ford Escorts, or 145 Formula One cars.
On October 15, 1997 in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada USA, driven by Andy Green, ThrustSSC became the first land vehicle to smash the sound barrier, reaching a speed of 1227 km/h (763 mph).
The car was driven by Wing Commander Andy Green in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada USA . It was powered by two afterburning Rolls-Royce Spey engines as used in British F-4 Phantom II jet fighters. It is 54 ft (16.5 m) long, 12 ft (3.7 m) wide and weighs 10.5 tons. The twin engines developed 110000 hp (82027 kW), 50000 lb (22680 kgf/223000N) and burned around 4 Imperial gallons per second (18.2 l /s or 4.8 US gallons /s). Transformed into the usual terms for car mileages based on its maximum speed, the fuel consumption was about 5,500 l / 100 km or 0.04 mpg.