Before BLOODHOUND SSC goes to South Africa, it will be tested at much lower speeds in the UK at Newquay. There’s no need for steel wheels there, so we have two separate sets of more traditional wheels with rubber tyres that will be used instead.
The runway tyres are, amazingly, the same tyres that were used on Thrust 2 and Thrust SSC.
Originally manufactured by Dunlop for the English Electric Lightning jet fighter, the Thrust team persuaded the manufacturer to make another batch for the car in 1979. These were later sold to a firm in South Africa which offered high speed flights to paying passengers, and then bought back by the BLOODHOUND Project.
Having got Dunlop to check they were still OK, it’s the spare tyres from this batch that will be used by BLOODHOUND. After all these years they are still ideal for high speed car runs as their profile is very tall and very skinny, and they have a very high load rating. As a consequence, the runway wheels were made to fit the tyres, rather than the other way around.
