The world's first 1,000mph car

The car is designed not just to break the world land speed record – 763mph – but to obliterate it Photograph: Curventa/PR

Bloodhound is named after the supersonic missiles that served as Britain's air defences at the start of the Cold War Photograph: Curventa/PR

The car will be the first to combine a Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine with a rocket booster. Between them they will produce a staggering 45,000lb of thrust Photograph: Curventa/PR

The car was proposed by UK science minister and racing car enthusiast Lord Drayson as an iconic project to inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers Photograph: The Bloodhound SSC/PR

The team's engineers have been working on the project in secret for 18 months from an aircraft hangar in Bristol Photograph: Curventa/PR

"It's an opportunity to do something extraordinary in engineering terms and to be part of the very best land speed record attempt in the world," said project member Wing Commander Andy Green, a 46-year-old Oxford mathematician and RAF fighter pilot Photograph: Curventa/PR

Green holds the current land speed record of 763mph – set in a car called Thrust SSC in 1997. Bloodhound SSC could beat that by more than 250mph. "It's more Buck Rogers than Wacky Races," says Green Photograph: The Bloodhound SSC/PR