Faster! Faster! Yet! Although, it would seem, where else. Leading automotive companies in the world are fighting to create a car, to the name of which they will definitely add: "This is the fastest car in the world!" Competition for the maximum speed of its four-wheeled product is also a competition for prestige. It does not matter that a person driving an ultra-high-speed car has not been driving for a long time, but almost piloting it. It does not matter that the reflexes of such a driver should be no worse than the pilots of modern fighters. It does not matter that the surrounding landscape at full throttle merges into an indistinguishable colorful strip. What is it when so much is at stake!
Hand on heart, to the slogans appearing almost every week, "The
fastest car in the world!" don't take it seriously. As soon as you read the text of the news, it immediately becomes clear: we are talking about another and not very solid fake of flashy advertising. Graceful, stylish contours of a brand new car are not yet a guarantee of super-acceleration and super-speed.
Although everything is relative. Time passes, and the former mind-blowing figures seem good-naturedly ridiculous. What once happened just like that is already hard to believe. As, for example, the fact that the first of the cars reached the speed of 100 km / h by an electric car - at the very end of the 19th century! Less than forty years later, and the new holder of the title "fastest car" rushed along the highway five times faster. Until now, not a single mass-produced car has come close to this indicator. With great difficulty, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport was officially able to fix 431 km / h.
It is difficult to say why superhigh-speed cars are needed on highways. They have already caught up with and surpassed
jets accelerating along the runway. A little more - and the car ceases to be such, turns into ... whom? Ground fighter? Land rocket?
In October 1997, the British Thrust SSC was taken to a specially created 21-kilometer highway laid in the Black Rock Nevada desert. The fastest car in human history, equipped with two turbofan engines, looked like a black arrow polished to shine in advertising stickers. It was not controlled by a driver or even a professional racer, but by the Royal Air Force fighter pilot Andy Green. The record set by Thrust SSC in just 30 seconds of its flight was astonishing: controlled ground transport for the first time in history crossed the sound barrier, reaching 1228 km / h! Exactly 50 years and one day have passed since the moment when Chuck Yeager first launched his X-1 in 1 Mach.
Deservedly taking his 30 seconds of fame, Thrust SSC is now a museum exhibit: it was sheltered by the Coventry Transport Museum. Meanwhile, engineers are preparing for the first test a new fastest car and again supersonic - Bloodhound SSC. In order to achieve a design speed of 1609 km / h, three engines were installed on it at once, including the Eurojet EJ200 from
the Eurofighter Typhoon combat
fighter. No less surprising is the fact that Andy Green, who has aged, but has not lost a bit of his courage, will once again be behind the wheel of a car. The current year 2013 is indicated in the plans of the Bloodhound SSC team as the beginning of its trials. Looking forward to a new record?