Q. What vehicle did you drive?

A. Thrust SSC, the world’s first (and only) SuperSonic Car. At 17 metres long and 10 tonnes (without fuel), it was something of a monster. However, with two reheated Rolls Royce Spey engines (a total of about 100,000hp) it had plenty of get-up-and-go. Under full power, it would accelerate at about 25mph per second. But if that sounds fast, it isn’t really.

Our new car, Bloodhound SSC, is being designed to do 1,000mph. It will have more power than Thrust SSC (the equivalent of 135,000hp) and will weighs half as much (five tonnes empty). 0-60mph time under full power? Just less than one second. Ouch.

Q. How long did you drive it?

A. We ran Thrust SSC in 1996 and 1997, setting the final record of 763mph on October 15, 1997 – the last day that it ever ran. The car made a total of 66 runs, about half of which were on the runway at Farnborough doing slow-speed tests (anything below 250mph is ‘slow speed’ for a car like this).

Our early desert runs were done in Jordan, where we eventually got up to a speed of 540mph (‘medium’ speed for a supersonic car). At that point we were ready to head for the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to go properly fast.

Sadly, since then, the surface of the Black Rock Desert has deteriorated and is no longer fit for record running, so we’ve had to find another track.

The new car will run on Hakskeen Pan in South Africa’s Northern Cape – we should be there early in 2012.

Q. How much did it cost?

A. Total cash spend for design, build and record runs was under £3m. Compare that with something like F1 and land speed record racing looks incredibly cheap! Bloodhound SSC is likely to cost about £10m in total, but we’ve got some novel new ways to help get people involved.

For instance, you can put your name on the fin of the car for only £10 – there are a lot of kids this year getting certificates to promise that their names will travel at 1,000mph one day. As you can imagine, this scheme is generating a huge amount of interest on our website, bloodhoundssc.com Q. What did you like most about THRUST SSC?

A. The effect that we created – putting Great British engineering on a global stage and showing that Britain is the very best in the world at this sort of thing. It was a wonderful opportunity and we were proud to have the chance to do it. This effect also got a lot of young people into engineering.

I keep meeting young engineers who started as a result of seeing Thrust SSC on TV when they were little.

This student focus has now become the main aim of the new Bloodhound project. We have a huge education programme, which has already signed up some 4,000 schools and colleges in the UK, to inspire the next generation of UK’s scientists and engineers.

Q. What irritated you most about it?

A. We painted it black. Bad colour for a car in the desert. Looked great, but it was very hot inside.

Q. Did the car have a nickname?

A. No.

Q. What is your favourite memory of the vehicle?

A. Walking behind it in the 1997 Lord Mayor’s Show in London, not long after we’d come back from setting the record in the US. Until that point, we hadn’t really realised how much of a following the car had in the UK, but the crowd response that day was amazing. Cheering, waving, smiling all along the route – the British public were clearly thrilled by what we had achieved. It was wonderful to find out that they knew what we’d done and that they loved it.

Q. And your worst?

A. Thinking that we wouldn’t get to run the car, because we didn’t have enough money to get the car out to the US. Quite simply, I don’t think that many companies thought we could do it, and in any case they didn’t really understand what was in it for them. Those that did support us got a huge return for their money, though – vast global media coverage, one of the world’s busiest websites, huge support from their employees, and so on. Having achieved this record, we now have the credibility of the being the world’s best land speed record team. That, and the huge value of the education programme, are making it slightly easier to raise funds for Bloodhound. Only slightly, though – this is still the most difficult bit.

Q. How does it feel to drive at 763mph?

A. Inside the cockpit, I was fighting against the shattering noise of the supersonic shockwaves, the enormously high temperatures, huge G forces and the tendency for the car to swerve up to 50ft off line at more than 600mph. Apart from all that, it wasn’t too bad.

Q. How did driving the car compare to flying a fighter plane?

A. It’s a very different sensation, but uses many of the same skills. The ability to absorb a lot of information, make split-second judgements about how the car was performing, check it was still running safely, monitor the engines and systems – these are the skills of a fighter pilot. I was very luck to have the best day job in the world, flying fighters for the Royal Air Force, and the best holiday job in the world, driving a supersonic car.

Q. What was your first personal car? How much did it cost and how long did you own it?

A. The first car I owned was a Mk I Ford Escort. Great student car, easy to keep running, it cost £400 and I had it for about three years.

Q. If you could own any car personally what would it be?

A. The world’s first 1,000mph car – Bloodhound SSC. I can’t have it though – we’re building it to inspire a generation and it will belong to them when we’re finished.