Express delivery: inside the Bloodhound supply chain

Around the country, something big is starting to stir. Painstakingly crafted 3D designs are beginning to take real form; carefully researched components are arriving at test benches; and fuel and lubricants are starting to flow. Engineers are turning the much-simulated shape of Bloodhound SSC, the vehicle that will aim to surpass a thousand miles an hour in South Africa’s Hakskeen Pan desert in 2014, into a reality, and the project’s headquarters - the riverside industrial unit in Bristol known as the Doghouse - is getting ready to receive its long-awaited resident.

Like every engineering project, Bloodhound is a collaboration; between engineers of different disciplines and with different backgrounds, but perhaps most of all between the core team, which is led by chief engineer Mark Chapman, and more than 200 suppliers. However, in many ways the project is unique: there is only a single product, very few spare parts, and the relationship between client and supplier is driven by mutual publicity rather than the more common commercial considerations.