A supersonic car that has been designed to reach a world land speed record of 1,000 miles per hour (mph) has undergone its first public test run in England.

The Bloodhound SSC car, powered by both a Rolls-Royce Ej200 jet fighter engine and a number of rockets, is designed to cover a mile in just over 3.6 seconds.

The car put in a series of “slow speed” runway tests Thursday which took the vehicle to a relatively sluggish 200 miles per hour.

The test runs took place at Newquay Airport in Cornwall, southwest England.

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The full 1,000 mile per hour attempt is scheduled to take place in the summer of 2018.

The original plan had been to return to the Black Rock desert in Utah where the current land speed record of 763 miles per hour was set in 1997 by Thrust SSC, the very first land vehicle to officially break the sound barrier.

However, years of poor weather as well as debris kicked up by the Burning Man festival have left the Black Rock surface unsuitable. The Bloodhound car will now attempt its full 1,000 mile per hour run at the Hakskeen Pan desert in South Africa.

The Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine is fed by a pump powered by a Jaguar V8 engine. This will take the car to 300 mph, at which stage a series of rockets will fire.

Fighter pilot Andy Green, who set the current record in 1997, was today’s driver and will be at the wheel for the 1,000 mph attempt.