AN East Lancashire firm could help power a spectacular vehicle to create a new world speed record.

John Getty’s company PDS Engineering, which based in Cliffe Street, Nelson, has built parts for the Bloodhound project, a supersonic car which has now been unveiled with a goal to travel at more than 1,000mph.

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PDS has supplied parts including fixtures and a rapid-filling fuel pump and staff will be on standby in the South African desert to provide replacement parts when the supersonic racer tries to smash the landmark.

The Bloodhound is on display at Canary Wharf in London and 8,000 people are expected to watch the £10million UK-built car attempt to shatter the world land speed record, which currently stands at 763mph.

It will undergo 200mph trials next year at Newquay Aerohub in Cornwall before embarking on a series of high-speed runs in the desert. At full speed the car will cover a mile in just 3.6 seconds.

Andy Green is the current record holder having achieved the feat in Thrust SSC at Black Rock Desert in Nevada in 1997.

Now 52, Green will be driving the Bloodhound whose project director is Richard Noble, who was also project director for Thrust SSC and who was the driver of Thrust 2 which broke the land speed record in 1983.

The supersonic car, which has been assembled at Avonmouth, near Bristol, is the result of eight years of research, design and manufacturing involving more than 350 companies and universities.

It has three power plants - a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet from a Eurofighter Typhoon, a cluster of Nammo hybrid rockets and a Jaguar V8 engine that drives the rocket oxidiser pump.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers hopes the Bloodhound will inspire more people into engineering.