SSC Regains Fastest Production Car Title With 316mph Tuatara

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on October 19th, 2020 in the Automotive News category.

 

It actually hit 331 as a true top speed even still what a missile this car is. Lets see what koenigsegg and Hennessey can do.

 

And to elaborate on that - doing a run in both directions is to reduce the effect of a tail wind by making the car drive into it on the reverse run. With a full 30mph difference between the first and second runs, that suggests quite a high wind speed on the day.

 

Finally in production, I've been hearing about the Tuatara since I was a little kid it feels like. The record is awesome.

 

It almost looks fake how fast and effortlessly it gets up to 500kmh. Only 11 seconds from 400kmh to 500kmh. WOW!

 

It makes even the koenig Agera R look slow. The way this car pulls from 200-300mph is how my car pulls 0-60 lol

 

This car is why Special Stage Route X exists.

 

At approx. 10% speed difference between runs my very poor maths comes up with about a 1mph head wind / tail wind advantage although aero can be tuned to a tail wind or head wind.I'm guessing now that event was staged in very still conditions due to the light vehicle weight as a crosswind would have been a handfull.
Changing gears at 240mph was nice though.

 

Man this be like me on Need For Speed Payback stretch of road trying to test out how fast my maxed out cars can go lol.

So incredible the speeds they can reach. I want this car in a NFS game and any other game I play. It deserves more attention.

We use to get excited for 300KPH then came along 400KPH. I can’t believe how quickly we’ve gotten to 500KPH. Absolutely insane so awesome to see.

 

Nearly a decade in the making. Big congrats to SSC for finally getting there.

 

Thats alot of mph

 

“There was definitely more in there. And with better conditions, I know we could have gone faster, as I approached 331 mph, the Tuatara climbed almost 20mph within the last five seconds. The car wasn’t running out of steam yet. The crosswinds are all that prevented us from realising the car’s limit.”
Link

Madness

 

Feeling the car become unsettled at 320 mph due to crosswinds sounds terrifying.

 

With a drag coefficient of .28 and how it was still rapidly gaining speed, I wouldn’t be surprised if that monster reached 400mph. Hennessey’s Venom F5 might be similar but Koenigsegg is getting left in the dust.
America is the speed king again!
Tuatara well worth the wait.

 

I remember seeing this car in the prototype stage in my favourite ever issue of Top Gear magazine, ten years ago almost to the day (October 2010) as a kid.


Seeing it now, doing 330mph... I am just in awe.

 

OK.

It took 29 years for the car to reach 100 MPH. It took another 82 years for the car to reach 200 MPH. 42 years later, the 300 MPH mark was broken. In the space of one year, a car has managed to hit 331 MPH. We were all blown away by the Veyron's top speed of 253 MPH (407KM/H) and within the space of 15 years, the goalposts have been moved by almost 80 MPH. Once again, this little American manufacturer has left VW and Bugatti shaking in their boots. 9 years of speculation, doubt and rumors have all been quashed by a world-beating run many thought would never happen. As long as there's a target, people will aim for it to gain bragging rights and fame. To break the record in this way in these confusing times, where the combustion engine is under threat, makes the achievement very special and admirable.

The car has never been better.

 

Coming to a Forza and Asphalt near you!

Seriously, I bet every game dev is clawing at them to put that car in their game now.

 

The SSC was in Asphalt 7, more than 6 years ago

https://asphalt.fandom.com/wiki/SSC_Tuatara

 

Ugly & fast .

 

Just think, in another 10 years, the Devel Sixteen might...

It is truly amazing, I hadn't been following the Tuatara for years, thought it might just be a concept forever, and now a Kiwi reptile is the undisputed fastest car on earth. Looking forward to whipping a virtual one around High Speed Ring.

 

Impressive, but how "production" is this car? Does it meet all US and EU regs? How many are rolling off the line? Genuinely interested.

 

Thanks. I didn't read the article because I just saw the video on YouTube. The other thing I'm interested in is the altitude of the place they set the record. These things are important because I've got a friend who always says "I'd have that car because it's the fastest top speed car" and I like pointing out the paint gonna be doing 200mph to Asda unless it's at the end of a 15 mile straight.

 

Somewhere between 2,100-2,600 ft above sea level. There's a slight grade coming out of Las Vegas, but it's not much.

I'm not sure how much air density plays into cars at that speed, but it's incredibly dry in that area. Humidity is going to be less than 20% in that area and probably more likely less than 10%.

 

Depending on what time they did it, they had a ~10 mph crosswind that afternoon

 

That's insane. I'm usually pretty ambivalent to top speeds, but 331 is too great a landmark to ignore.

 

You know..I was just thinking....this will probably be the last ICE-powered car to hold the production car speed record. Whatever goes faster will probably be electric.

 

Even with electric power, I doubt that tire technology will catch up fast enough if hypercars continue to push towards 350mph. Busting through 500kph (much less 300mph) has effectively taken down the last relevant obstacle for street cars in pursuing speed records.

 

Relevant.