• Team announces its most substantial sponsorship deal

• World Land Speed Record Challenge on track for Autumn 2017

• Geely to take BLOODHOUND Inspiration Programme across Asia

The BLOODHOUND Project today announced Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (ZGH) as its prime sponsor and Official Automotive Partner in a 3-year agreement. The leading Chinese automotive group will provide technical as well as financial support to the Project and promote its Inspirational Programme throughout Asia.

The deal, signed in August, is the largest in the history of the Project and means plans for challenging the World Land Speed Record in 2017 are now back on track.

Project BLOODHOUND is a British initiative with truly global reach. Followed in over 200 countries, its roadshows have toured Europe, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, India and China. The Model Rocket Car Challenge is now rolling out across 5,500 UK schools and 10 countries while the UK’s Great Campaign, an official partner to the Project, uses BLOODHOUND to promote UK skills worldwide.

ZGH is the largest privately owned Chinese Auto Group and has grown rapidly over the last few decades. The parent company to Geely Auto, ZGH, also owns Volvo Car Group and London Taxi Company. Geely Auto has four international research and design centres, employs close to 10,000 engineers worldwide and has also established universities, further education colleges and technology schools across China.

Geely joins a distinguished roster of international organisations supporting the Engineering Adventure including Rolls-Royce, Castrol, Rolex, Parker Hannifin, Atlas Copco, STP, Lockheed Martin, Nammo, Thyssen Krupp and Otto Fuchs. Jaguar continues in its role as technical partner to the Project and its V8 engine will remain the Auxiliary Power Unit used to power the oxidiser pump for the BLOODHOUND’s hybrid rocket.

The partnership will see Geely Auto technology being used within BLOODHOUND SSC; Geely Group vehicles being used in South Africa throughout record campaigns; design and engineering support being provided, where required, to help the Project achieve its goals; promotion of BLOODHOUND across Asia and the team’s STEM inspiration programme rolled out across China.

BLOODHOUND Project Director, Richard Noble, said

“We could not have a better partner than Geely: not only are they an international technology company with tremendous vision and capability, they share our passion for innovation and education. Their support, both technical and financial, means we can now plan next year’s record-breaking challenge with confidence. It also means we can take our STEM inspiration message to a vast new audience, which is great for science and engineering but also for promoting Great Britain.”

Li Shufu, Chairman, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, said

“We are proud and excited to be part of this extraordinary team. Geely shares the same challenging spirit and passion for pushing technological barriers as the BLOODHOUND Project.

“Since day one we have been committed to breaking technology barriers at Geely and working with Project BLOODHOUND will help further our mutual technology breakthrough to an international audience. It also means we can tell millions of young people, in China and around the world, about the opportunities presented by studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics. That is what makes this ‘Engineering Adventure’ so special and why we wanted to be part of it.”

 

– Ends –

The latest imagery and videos can be accessed http://bit.ly/2cTi8cY

For more information, interviews, imagery and videos contact

UK: Richard Knight [email protected] / +44 (0) 7725 996 625
UK: Jules Tipler [email protected] / +44 (0) 7811 166 796
SA: Schalk Mouton [email protected] / +27 (0) 82 739 9637

Notes to Editors

• The world land speed record of 763mph (1227km/h) is held by Thrust SSC, a UK team led by BLOODHOUND’s Project Director Richard Noble and driven by Andy Green.
• The BLOODHOUND team scoured the globe to find the perfect desert to run the car on. It needed to be at least 12 miles (19km) long, 2 miles (3km) wide and perfectly flat. The Hakskeen Pan, Northern Cape, South Africa was selected.
• At full speed, BLOODHOUND SSC will cover a mile (1.6km) in 3.6 seconds – that’s 4.5 football pitches laid end to end per second.
• BLOODHOUND has three power plants: a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet from a Eurofighter Typhoon; a cluster of Nammo hybrid rockets; and a 550bhp Supercharged Jaguar V8 engine that drives the rocket oxidizer pump. Between them they generate 135,000 thrust horsepower, equivalent to 180 Formula 1® cars.
• Over 280 global companies, 200 of them SMEs, are involved in the Project, which has become a showcase for science and engineering capability.
• 8,000 schools have engaged in the BLOODHOUND BLAST Channel to access free education resources.
• The educational outreach programme also runs in South Africa, with more than 1,278 schools already participating and 83 BLOODHOUND Ambassadors signed up to help use the project to inspire young people about studying maths and science. The programme reaches out to schools across the country, but particularly in the Northern Cape Province, home to the track where BLOODHOUND SSC will run.

Education Facts

• 100 BLOODHOUND education STEM Hubs across the UK.
• Students from 550 secondary schools have designed, built and raced 10,000 micro:bit model rocket car kits, made available to these schools through the partnership with the British Army.
• 550 BLOODHOUND School STEM Communities across the UK.
• 8,000 schools engaged in the BLOODHOUND BLAST Channel to access free
• education resources, including 1,278 schools in South Africa.
• 150 STEM school events per year reach over 100,000 students.
• 800 specially trained BLOODHOUND ambassadors help the team support teachers across the country.
• Our team aims to deliver a BLOODHOUND lesson to 2.5 million schoolchildren by 2018.
• 65% of students engaged by BLOODHOUND would now consider engineering or science as a vocation (sample size: 1,804).
• The Model Rocket Car Challenge, supported by Guinness World Records, has seen students build model cars capable initially of speeds of 88mph, which then rose to 210mph and now 553mph (889km/h), a record held by Joseph Whitaker Young Engineers Club.

Engineering facts

• BLOODHOUND’s wheels spin at 10,200rpm – that’s 170 times per second. They generate 50,000 radial G. At this speed, a  1kg bag of sugar would weigh 50 tonnes, or the equivalent of a fully laden articulated lorry.
• BLOODHOUND will run on the Hakskeen Pan, South Africa. This is an alkali playa, which is essentially a dried-up lake bed.
• A team of 317 members of the local community were employed to clear the desert. They shifted 15,800 tonnes of stones by  hand, from an area of 22 million square metres, the equivalent of clearing a two-lane road from Bristol to Moscow.
• For the 1,000mph (1,600km/h) runs in 2018, BLOODHOUND SSC will be fitted with three hybrid rockets, which, when  combined with the EJ200 jet engine from a Eurofighter Typhoon plane, will produce 135,000 thrust horsepower – equal to 180 Formula 1® cars.
• BLOODHOUND will decelerate from 1,000mph (1,600km/h) at 3G, equivalent to slowing from 60mph (100km/h) to standstill in  1 second.
• BLOODHOUND will go from zero to 1,000mph (1,600 km/h) in 55 seconds and back to zero again in a further 65 seconds,  during which time it will cover 12 miles.
• The EJ200 jet engine consumes 65,000 litres of air per second, sufficient to suck the air out of an average sized house in just 3 seconds.

Downloads

BLOODHOUND_lead partner announced September 2016.pdf  (This press Release) 

BLOODHOUND SSC and Land Speed Racing – The Basics.pdf