SSC Is ‘The Only Car Maker With A Shot At Topping 300mph'

The CEO of SSC North America reckons the 1750bhp Tuatara is the only car with a realistic chance of making it past 300mph
Posted by SSC North America on Tuesday, August 28, 2018

The SSC Tuatara is the only road car with a chance of smashing the 300mph barrier, according to its makers.

The bold claim, which would see the hypercar surpass anything else on the road by some distance, has come straight from the top. In an interview with Top Gear, CEO Jerod Shelby said:

“The knowledge I have of our competitors, I feel that we’re the only ones that really have a legitimate shot because of the drag numbers and the horsepower that we’re producing.

“We wanted the engineering to exceed anything we had done before and what our competitors are doing, but the overarching goal was 300mph.”

SSC Is ‘The Only Car Maker With A Shot At Topping 300mph'

That’s obviously aimed at Hennessey, which is also said to be gunning for 300mph with its Venom F5.

The Tuatara, whose name sounds a bit awkward to British ears, is still under development but was revealed in late-stage concept form at the Pebble Beach Concourse of Elegance recently. The clever mid-mounted V8 can run on ordinary roadside unleaded petrol to produce 1350bhp, E85 racing fuel to cough up a healthy 1750bhp, or any mix of the two with a sliding scale power output. Fuelling with half-and-half will give you 1500bhp or so.

SSC Is ‘The Only Car Maker With A Shot At Topping 300mph'

It’s a twin-turbo 5.9-litre V8 with a flat-plane crank and two injectors per cylinder. Fuel efficient? Probably not, but the short-stroke engine revs to 8800rpm and apparently sounds immense. We can’t wait to hear it at full chat.

SSC Is ‘The Only Car Maker With A Shot At Topping 300mph'

Aerodynamics are proving crucial to the car’s attempt at the 300mph mark. SSC says the Tuatara’s present form has a coefficient of drag measuring 0.279, which has “already exceeded where we want to be,” says Shelby, but needs refinement to cope with the sheer relative velocity of the air it will need to slip through. Apparently, the planned improvements will simultaneously lower drag even further while increasing downforce.

Whether it really will hit 300mph is something we can’t know yet. Development is set to hand over to production in May 2019, with the first deliveries from the 100-car run commencing between one and three months after that. You’ve ordered one, right?

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Comments

Tomislav Celić

Even Michelin said that it’s impossible to go 300 mph right now…

So unless they are making their own tyres I doubt they will do it.

09/06/2018 - 11:08 |
68 | 0

Wrong, they said it’ll do it for short periods, extending running at 270+ causes too much heat.

09/06/2018 - 12:08 |
19 | 0

I thought there weren’t tires that can do 300 and be comfortable for daily driving. What if ssc doesn’t care about drivability?

09/06/2018 - 13:46 |
14 | 0

It was a while ago that they said that, maybe tyre technology is able to do it now. However, you make a valid point.

09/06/2018 - 14:12 |
1 | 0

Isn’t there a way to put rubber on a smooth rim to Eliminate tires blowing apart?

01/31/2019 - 16:31 |
0 | 0
BrownGumshoe

Wouldnt get my hopes up since literally any small hyper-car maker says the same thing

09/06/2018 - 11:09 |
14 | 0

Well SSC made a car that can go over 400 km/h in period between ‘09-‘13.

09/06/2018 - 12:46 |
10 | 1

SSC already made a car that was the fastest of all time for a period, and it broke the record set by the normal bugatti veyron iirc

09/06/2018 - 13:50 |
8 | 0

actually ssc is one of the few small car makers that have credibility

12/02/2018 - 22:16 |
0 | 0
Burnout🔰(Rotary Fighter)(SaveCT)

I’ve just realized that it looks very similar to the Hennessey Venom F5

09/06/2018 - 11:12 |
1 | 0

But, the concept version of this car was already revealed a couple of years earlier before the F5 was revealed, and the concept looks the same like this one

09/06/2018 - 12:46 |
3 | 0

They both have that fiberglass look also

09/06/2018 - 13:48 |
0 | 0
Renault GTR

The Tuatara, whose name sounds a bit awkward to British ears
Care to explain why?

09/06/2018 - 11:35 |
3 | 0

It sounds like “twat-ara” if you say it in a certain way

09/06/2018 - 11:39 |
7 | 0
TheRacingGoat Mk. II 🐐🐐🐐

Because ‘merica.

09/06/2018 - 11:48 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

I was fully expecting a Christian von Koenigsegg meme in these comments. I’m disappointed/relieved, I can’t decide which.

09/06/2018 - 12:02 |
15 | 0
Olivier (CT's grammar commie)

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

“disappointed”

It was already dead when it came out, plus it was overposted, thank God nobody posted anything looking like that

09/06/2018 - 13:11 |
3 | 3
Wogmidget

300mph? I hope there’s space for a spare pair of undies

09/06/2018 - 12:18 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

The rear end is almost identical to the f5 : the center triangle and the two “tears” that extend from center to the sides of the bumper , and even the tail lights are similar shaped :o

09/06/2018 - 12:42 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

But i remember that this car was already pictured 5 years ago or something. The concept then maybe idk

09/06/2018 - 13:51 |
0 | 0
RWB Dude

They did break the top speed record once before, they can probably do it again

09/06/2018 - 13:18 |
3 | 0
Ray Sloan

Has everyone forgotten about the ultimate aero? Never hear about it anymore. It was like an ugly S7

09/06/2018 - 13:45 |
1 | 0

I remember it, yeah it was a bit ugly (i liked the front though) but it was fast

09/06/2018 - 13:51 |
0 | 0

Which in turn was more ugly than the McLaren F1, which was in turn (slightly) more ugly than the XJ220, which in turn-

It seems that the faster you go, the uglier you get. I mean, look at Bugatti and Koenigsegg…

09/15/2018 - 12:19 |
0 | 0