Beverly Singh, a mechanical engineer from Port Elizabeth, will help design the Bloodhound supersonic car, currently being built by a team of about 30 engineers in a high-tech centre near Bristol.
The rocket-powered car will come to South Africa in 2015 for a series of test runs (over several months) to break the sound barrier and current land speed record of 1228 km/h.
In 2016, it will attempt to set a record 30 per cent faster than that: 1609 km/h.
"The engineers working on the Bloodhound are the best in the world in their fields. I always wanted to do something like this," said Singh.
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Singh has left her job as a process engineer in Port Elizabeth and will fly to Bristol in a few weeks.
She says she will focus on her full-time degree studies but will take time out to be with the team building the car.
However, Singh said she had no idea what she would be working on in the Bloodhound project. She hopes she will be able to join the team when the car is shipped to South Africa for testing.
The test runs and the record attempts will take place at Hakskeenpan in the Northern Cape Province.