ssc tuatara
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John Mahoney11 May 2020
NEWS

WATCH: 300mph SSC Tuatara unleashed on the road

Production-spec Tuatara driven on highway ahead of top speed record attempt

SSC North America has released a new video of its upcoming SSC Tuatara, which has been created to smash records and become the world's fastest car.

Created to crush established hypercars like the Bugatti Chiron and the McLaren Speedtail, SSC has already claimed the production version of the Tuatara should be capable of exceeding 300mph (483km/h).

In the video you'll also witness the US-made Chiron-rival's dramatic shape that is said to gift it an impossibly low drag coefficient of just 0.276Cd, which is crucial for SSC to realise its aim of producing the world’s fastest car.

ssctautara ii

The short clip also gives you a sense of how just quick the Tuatara is. Crank up the volume and you'll even hear its twin-turbocharged 5.9-litre V8 working hard for a living.

Mid-mounted, the V8 is said to have been developed by both SSC and Californian-based engineering firm, Nelson Racing Engines.

Incorporating race car tech like dual water-to-air intercoolers, twin fuel-injectors per cylinder and two huge turbos, SSC claims the Tuatara produces an incredible 1007kW -- on regular 91 octane petrol.

More astonishingly, when the twin-turbo V8 is fed with E85 ethanol, power rockets up to 1300kW.

The Tuatara is claimed to hit 60mph (97km/h) in just 2.5 seconds, but it's the car's 300mph (483km/h) top speed that will separate the SSC from the increasingly crowded hypercar segment.

If it hits those numbers, the SSC will usurp the current record holder, Koenigsegg’s Agera RS, which recorded an incredible 458km/h on a closed Nevada road in November 2017.

SSC has a decent track record of smashing top speed records. Back in 2007, the SSC Ultimate Aero was crowned the Guinness World Records' fastest production car after clocking 412.28km/h on a closed two-lane stretch of public highway.

ssc iv 8w10

That record was broken in 2010 by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport with a top speed of 431.072Km/h.

Last year Bugatti, again, set a scorching top speed of 490.48km/h with its Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ but the record was ruled invalid as the car involved was a pre-production prototype.

SSC, meanwhile, plans to make 100 production Tuataras but the car-maker has not yet confirmed how much it will charge for them.

SSC has confirmed that it will attempt to break the 300mph record later this year at an unknown location.

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