The SSC Tuatara wants to join the "300 mph Club"

How many times have you thought that the highest speeds shown on speedometers behind the steering wheel are mere optical illusions? Both because of the vehicle’s own capability and because of legal limits, going past one hundred kilometres per hour is little short of costly for most ‘mortals’, except for specimens like the SSC Tuatara.

But there are examples, both of people and machines, that exceed top speeds without breaking a sweat. Supercars and their owners can catapult themselves to dizzying acceleration figures, and the latest example of cars that can surpass not just 200, 300, or even 400, and approach 500 km/h is the SSC Tuatara.

The American hypercar is a project that seemed destined for the pile of broken dreams but, like a roller coaster, it can now be said that production of this car will become a reality.

Since its presentation in 2019, its manufacturer, Shelby SuperCars North America, SSC, has set the planned run at just 100 units, at a price of close to one million dollars each.

Be that as it may, the glimpses the manufacturer has shown over recent times are, to say the least, chilling.

Starting from the heart of this monster, a block made for this car by the specialist Nelson Racing Engines, whose layout is based on 8 cylinders arranged in a V and a displacement of 5.9 litres, paired with a sequential gearbox that takes 100 milliseconds to shift up or down one of its 7 gears, capable of producing up to 1,775 CV.

This engine sits inside a carbon fibre monocoque chassis and is wrapped in a body also made from this material, used in automotive parts that could well be considered genuine works of industrial goldsmithing since, as if that were not enough, it achieves a drag coefficient more typical of a surface-to-surface missile: 0.279.

Thus, Shelby SuperCars claims its car is capable of reaching a staggering 300 mph, meaning its speedometer can read 483 km/h. An achievement they are already hinting at with videos such as the following.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEECIUynFW8