Thrust: The Remarkable Story Of One Man's Quest For Speed - Noble, Richard

They said it couldn't be done. Sceptics warned that as a car approached 750 mph the shock waves generated when it hit the sound barrier would either force it off the ground like an aeroplane or tear it apart. Richard Noble, the modern embodiment of the swashbuckling British speed seeker of yesteryear, was used to that kind of blinkered thinking.