This gallery appeared in Machine Design and has been published here with permission.
This past October, a Tuatara sports car designed and built by SSC North America set an as-yet-unverified speed record for a production car on a seven-mile stretch of long, flat road in Nevada. It hit over 331 mph on one run, but it had to be averaged with another run traveling in the opposite direction for the record of 316.11 mph. (Note: Several GPS glitches and other errors have cast doubt on the Tuatara’s speed record. SSC says it will take another stab at the speed record after sorting through some technical problems.)
The averaged runs must be over the same route but in the opposite direction to balance out effects of wind and terrain. To earn the record, the Tuatara had to drive on a public road for “real-world” driving conditions. It also had to be equipped with street-legal tires and couldn’t use racing fuel.
The previous record of 284.6 mph was set on the same road in 2017 by a Koenigsegg Agera RS. Before that, the record had been set at 267.9 mph in 2010 by a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport.