The SSC Tuatara has now officially held the speed record for production cars. After a previous record attempt was called into question, the 1,750 horsepower hypercar at the Kennedy Space Center clocked an average speed of 455.3 km / h.
The speed now clocked is a lot lower than during the previous SSC record attempt with the Tuatara: an average speed of 508.72 km / h was measured on the Nevada State Highway 160 over two runs. Critics, however, questioned this record attempt after analyzing the images: the measured speed would be impossible to achieve on that route. SSC then enlisted the help of Racelogic, a manufacturer of measuring equipment, and made a new record attempt. Successfully. On the runway at the Kennedy Space Center, the Tuatara had a verified average speed of 455.3 km / h after two runs.
The new average is considerably lower than what SSC noted above. This is partly because this time they only had 2.3 miles (3.68 kilometers) of asphalt to accelerate to top speed. Nor was there a professional driver behind the wheel, but Larry Caplin, the owner of the first Tuatara. Nevertheless, 455.3 km / h is enough to break Koenigsegg’s previous record, which achieved an average top speed of 447.19 km / h with the Agera RS in 2017.
What about Bugatti?
One more important goal remains open to SSC: officially breaking the magical 300 mph (480 km / h) barrier. In the current record attempt, the supercar manufacturer just missed that figure: on the second run, Caplin drove 286.1 mph (460.4 km / h). Bugatti did manage to break through that boundary earlier; in 2019 the Chiron Sport reached 304.77 mph (490.48 km / h). That doesn’t make the SSC record any less justified, because the speed of the Bugatti was not an average over two runs. In the video, SSC indicates that it wants to quickly make another record attempt to break that boundary. To be continued …