On Wednesday, SSC announced that it had raised the car to an average top speed of 283 miles per hour during two runs. But the test, completed on January 17, was made in much more difficult conditions than before. The car was driven by an amateur driver, rather than a professional. And for this reason, the power of the car has been reduced.
The company will continue to try, however, Shelby said. He said the next trials will begin in the spring. with the machine running at full power throughout the run.
The $ 1.9 million tuatara has butterfly doors and a V-8 turbo engine. SSC says the model’s aerodynamic design was inspired by fighter jets and lasted more than a decade of research and development. Tuatara is named after a lizard from New Zealand, which got its name from a Maori word for “tips on the back”.
Tuatara’s latest race could already count as a record. But what constitutes a record for “the fastest production machine in the world” remains disputed, without the recognition of an international sanctioning body and no official definition of what constitutes a “production machine”. Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg claimed the fastest production car record for the Agera RS, which hit 278 mph on a Nevada highway in 2017. A modified Bugatti Chiron ran 305 mph on a test track in Germany, but that car was considered to be a production prototype.
SSC Tuatara’s first attempt to break the record last fall was made on a section of a closed highway in the Nevada desert outside of Las Vegas. SSC is making new attempts on a former space shuttle in Florida. Called Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds, the former runway is now used to test cars at extremely high speeds.
But instead of seven miles of highway to reach more than 300 mph, SSC Tuatara now has only 3.3 miles. That requires different, more aggressive techniques if there is any hope of crossing 300 mph.
In the last attempt in January, SSC Tuatara was run by its owner, Larry Caplin, a dentist and founder of DOCS Health, a company that provides healthcare for large organizations. To speed up the car, Caplin had to hold the gas pedal on the floor for 50 seconds. The car reached 244 miles per hour in less than a mile, according to SSC.
“Larry gave a race that was much more difficult, at least by a factor of four, than what I tried in Nevada,” Shelby said in an email.
Because Caplin is not a trained race driver, Tuatara power has been reduced by using the car’s on-board computers to just 1,500 horsepower most of the time. In the last race alone and only in seventh gear, the car was allowed to produce 1,750 horsepower, Shelby said.
“I was deeply impressed,” Shelby said in an interview. “After lifting him up to 250 miles per hour, I looked at his camera in the car during these runs. And he was so calm, with no drama at all. He seemed very composed and I thought we could do to stay. ‘”
With that maximum power, the highest unidirectional maximum speed of the car was 286 mph and the combined average maximum speed, which goes in both directions, was 283 mph, the company said.
SSC claimed that the car reached a speed of 331 mph and an average top speed of 316 mph in two opposite directions in its initial test. Record-keeping bodies, such as Guinness, require speed recordings in both directions to ensure that wind or inclination is not a factor. But with serious questions about his video evidence, Shelby still felt he had to be asked again to answer criticism. (Shelby is not related to Carroll Shelby, the famous founder of Shelby American, the company that produces Shelby Cobra and Shelby Mustangs.)
“I think this production car speed record is marketing,” Shelby said, “and this is a kind of internal design challenge where we want our customers, the Tuatara customer, to know that they bought the fastest car. from the world.”