Land speed record kept on track – Bloodhound SSC
May 2009
Leading independent financial services provider, Hilton-Baird Financial Solutions, has helped keep Richard Noble’s latest world land speed record project on track after securing new short-term funding.
63-year-old Noble, best known for his Thrust2 and ThrustSSC supersonic cars, is currently working to his own record with the latest car – the 130,000HP, 1000mph, BLOODHOUND SSC.
Powered by a Eurojet EJ200 Eurofighter engine and the Falcon hybrid rocket (the largest ever built in Britain), the 6.5 tonne all British BLOODHOUND SSC is capable of acceleration from 0-1000mph in 40 seconds and achieving the magic 1000mph in 2011.
However, funding for the ambitious £12million project, the majority of which is sponsor sourced, ran into short-term difficulty last month due to the credit crunch.
Hilton-Baird was able to broker a factoring facility at short notice which enabled the team to maintain its design programme pace.
Richard Noble says: “Like so many businesses at the moment we hit financial problems when we were unable to factor one of our sponsor’s invoices and the sponsor was unable to bring the payment forward.
“Ordinarily there would be no problem in gaining a factoring facility, but such is the current situation that it wasn’t so easy. Fortunately, Hilton-Baird Financial Solutions came up with the solution and enabled us to maintain the essential design pace.”
The BLOODHOUND project, the idea of Lord Drayson, Minister of Science and Innovation, is unique in that the project data and technology is being made available to schools concurrently as the programme develops – the objective being to inspire a new generation of British engineers. Currently, 927 schools have taken up the programme and are using BLOODHOUND classroom resource whilst 124 companies are contributing to the project.
Evette Orams, Director of Hilton-Baird Financial Solutions, adds: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have played our part in helping Richard and his team overcome a short-term funding difficulty and to be able to help them maintain the project pace.”
To see if we could help your business access a short-term funding solution contact our team on 0800 9774833 or info@hiltonbaird.co.uk. Alternatively, request a call back and one of our funding consultants will be in touch.
