A car broke the sound barrier on land for the first time
On this day · 15 October 1997
Thrust SSC roared across a Nevada desert at Mach 1.02, becoming the first wheeled vehicle to outrun its own sonic boom.
On 15 October 1997, in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, a 54-foot jet car called Thrust SSC did something no land vehicle had managed before: it went supersonic. Driven by RAF pilot Andy Green, it averaged 763 mph over the measured mile — roughly Mach 1.02 — and dragged a sonic boom across the playa with it.
The car was less automobile than grounded aircraft. Twin Rolls-Royce Spey turbofans, the kind bolted into Phantom fighter jets, produced about 110,000 horsepower between them.
The record came 50 years and one day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the air.
Nearly three decades on, Thrust SSC still holds the official World Land Speed Record, and remains the only car ever to break the sound barrier on land. Locals in nearby Gerlach reported the boom rattling their windows from miles away.
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