The shape of BLOODHOUND SSC has evolved a long way from the original "Configuration 0" first thought up in August 2007. See the story of the configuration development here.

The iterative process that analyses each design, looks at what's good and what's bad, then feeds back into the subsequent design - and punctuated with occasional "eureka" moments - has finally settled on "Configuration 10" as the way forward ...

This sleek design is completely determined by the aerodynamics. The "Jet over Rocket" configuration works extremely well with the thrust forces from the jet and the rocket balancing either side of the centre of gravity, creating less downward force on the front wheels when the rocket is fired. See our recent update on comparing the configurations.

The design team are now going through a detailed "Parametric Optimisation" exercise , which is essentially finding out which tweaks work best in combination!

With the basic design "locked in", many smaller features have been identified that each have an effect on the aerodynamics, and vaying one will inevitably affect many of the others

Parametric Optimisation is a quick way of anaysing these effects, and will result in the best set up of the car and give us confidence in reaching our target speed.

Some of these study parameters (but by no means all!) include:

•     delta strut leading edge
•     delta angle of attack
•     delta strut camber
•     base area
•     rear wheel track
•     fairing spike length
•     fairing spike height
•     boat-tail angle
•     body-delta angle
•     ride height

This analysis - tweaking the details! - will take a few more weeks, but the final shape will look very much like this: