Why Every Supercar Top Speed Record Is Pointless

Bin all your Top Trumps, tear down those posters, reset the rulebook: Bugatti’s Veyron Super Sport is no longer the world’s fastest street car. Except it actually is, mathematically, physically...just not officially. Confused? You should be, because this story is as ridiculous as supercar performance gets.

Here’s the lowdown in one bitesize chunk. Hennessey, who make the Venom GT (which I don’t like one bit) lodged a complaint with Guinness World Records, after their Venom GT hit 265.7mph in a one-mile runway dash (majorly impressive, but still nowhere near the 270mph+ they claim).

Hennessey’s complaint stated that the Bugatti SS was limited to 258mph when sold, due to the tyres not being able to handle 267mph outside of racetrack controlled conditions. So, Bugatti has been stripped of the supercar speed record, which now reverts back to the SSC Ultimate Aero TT’s 256mph, despite other cars having gone faster. Wai...wuh?

So the world’s fastest car is actually the third or fourth fastest, but the quickest to have done an official Guinness-certified run. Despite the fact we all know that a Veyron SS can touch 269mph (and a two-way average of 267mph), it was artificially limited to stop playboys killing themselves with speed – 258mph is way safer, obviously.

Does the moral high ground go to Hennessey here? No. Why? Because what you might not have heard alongside all the willy-waggling and ‘look how quick our car is over one mile’ is that the Venom GT nuked itself in the process. Getting 265mph in a mile is insane and amazing, but the test car needed a full engine rebuild and had to be trailered away from the airfield after the record attempt. Hence still no 270mph+ proof, and no capitalising on the Veyron SS getting a red card from the top speed game.

Then again, pretty much every supercar that’s broken the record has had a cheat, a caveat, or some sort of excuse to justify. Back in 1994, the McLaren F1 hit 240mph – with its 6800rpm rev limiter removed. Road cars had the redline limiter, and topped out at 231mph in sixth gear.

It was Jaguar’s XJ220 that the F1 superseded as supercar king – a car that reached 217mph on Nardo’s banked bowl. On a straight, it would’ve hit the 220mph that the name promised, but the tyre scrub from the constant turn held it back. See also the 2005 Koenigsegg CCR. 241mph at Nardo is bloody rapid, but slower than the 245mph V-MAX Koenigsegg claimed was possible on the flat. The Agera R pictured below has never been V-MAXed. Is it the world's fastest-in-waiting?

Don’t forget the oldies too. Though the 201mph Ferrari F40 will always be remembered as the first car to top 200mph, beating the tech-fest Porsche 959 by 2mph, the smart money has always reckoned Porsche’s top speed claim was conservative, and the Ferrari a little optimistic. It’d be a brave (and rich) soul that’d try and prove the theory though...

Will anyone step in to defend the top speed record runs of these amazingly-engineered, supremely fast but ultimately futile and ridiculous machines. Be my guest, but be honest, you’d rather spend your million quid on a 458 Italia and your own racetrack instead. You can live with only 202mph flat out – right?