LOL!
Back in October of last year there was much celebrating on behalf of SSC, the little boutique automaker which suddenly rose up and slew all the giants by supposedly pushing its Tuatara hypercar to 300 mph and beyond. We didn’t cover that supposed accomplishment because something seemed… fishy about it. Well, that decision has been vindicated as SSC has been forced to admit the Tuatara didn’t in fact hit the claimed top speed of 331 mph or even 301 mph.
Another boutique "automaker" has emerged from Europe with an interesting off-road supercar. Check it out here.
Back in October, the claim made by SSC was that the Tuatara set a new production-vehicle land-speed record of 316.11 mph after a two-way average on a public road. The hypercar supposedly went 301.7 mph going in one direction on the long, straight stretch, which had been closed to the public for the record attempt, and 331.15 mph going the other direction. That all turned out to be bogus – go figure.
In an Instagram post which as of the writing of this article has garnered over 14,000 likes, SSC North America addresses the questions people have been directing at it for months on end. The company is apparently “heartbroken… to learn (it) did not reach this feat (of 300+ mph).”
But don’t worry, the team at SSC is working hard to break the 300 mph barrier for production cars, because that’s something rich guys definitely don’t need in the car they take to the club on the weekends. We get it, there’s the aspect of doing something just to see if you can, as well as getting bragging rights and of course improving automotive technology through this friendly top-speed competition a few automakers have engaged in.
SSC North America pledges in that same Instagram post to achieve a 300-plus mph speed with the Tuatara “transparently.” Yeah, with all the interesting dodging of questions and so on since last fall, some people are going to have serious doubts that will happen.
Hey, you still have to admit the Tuatara is a cool hypercar, if that’s what you want. With 1350-horsepower squeezed out of the twin-turbo flat-plane crank V8 using 91 octane gas, or even better 1750-hp running E85, the thing is no slouch. Plus, it holds the production-car land-speed record after hitting 282.9 mph back in January, but that’s not 300 mph and definitely isn’t 331 mph. Unfortunately, people are going to associate the thing with a failed attempt to set a speed record and what appears to be some sort of coverup of the results, unless of course the hypercar achieves those amazing results finally. We’ll see what the future holds for SSC.
