The 1,000mph Bloodhound land speed record project is over

The dream is over. Today, the administrators for Bloodhound, the British project to break the land speed record, have announced that a buyer cannot be found, and that the project will be wound up.

The firm entered administration two months ago, the aim being to find a buyer able to inject the £25 million the team believed was needed to take the rocket-and-jet powered car to South Africa and run it. Unfortunately, although several potential buyers came forward, that process failed.

The administrators issued a release saying: “Despite overwhelming public support, and engagement with a wide range of potential and credible investors, it has not been possible to secure a purchaser for the business and assets.

“We will now work with key stakeholders to return the third-party equipment and then sell the remaining assets of the company to maximise the return for creditors.”

It’s a sad end for an ambitious undertaking that wasn’t just about sending a car as fast as possible across a desert – that could be dismissed as a vanity project. Instead it aimed – and succeeded – at inspiring the next generation of engineers and scientists. Over the last ten years the Bloodhound educational programme has engaged with over two million children – over 120,000 every year in the UK alone.

So that’s it. This could be the moment the Land Speed Record fades with a whimper, it’s existence an anachronism in the age of enlightened electric motoring. Is this the end of the line? Will the fastest a car ever travels remain the 763.035mph set by Thrust SSC back in 1997? And if so, do you care?