Is the long-awaited 300-mph hypercar finally ready for primetime?
SSC North America is back with a pair of new videos showing the sci-fi-styled Tuatara in action. Unfortunately, in typical SSC style the action is limited to just 50 seconds split between two videos. We have the more interesting of the two plugged in up top, showing the hypercar getting some dyno testing done. The second video below is just a 14-second blast showing the car driving down a canyon road.
At least these clips give us a chance to hear the Tuatara’s 1,750-horsepower engine actually powering the car. It’s a 5.9-liter twin-turbo V8 with a claimed redline of 8,800 RPM, and frankly, it sure does sound interesting to us in these clips. Listening to the dyno pull, someone not familiar with the Tuatara might mistake the mill for something with fewer cylinders at first. Then again, most larger displacement V8s don’t spin to nearly 9k in a street application. Unfortunately, the video shows just the car without any dyno plot so, at this point, we’re still left with SSC’s word that the Tuatara can generate its claimed power. That is, when it’s running ethanol-rich E85 fuel.
The second clip shows the car making a high-speed pass on a canyon road. A YouTube commenter pegs the location as Webber Canyon, located in Kennewick, Washington. That would be appropriate since SSC is based in Washington, and though the clip is just 14 seconds long, it’s the most athletic look we’ve had thus far of the long-overdue hypercar. And we do mean long overdue – the Tuatara first debuted in 2011 as a concept car.
It seems that wait could be over soon. After years of nary a word, SSC brought a production-spec prototype to Pebble Beach last year. With it came a press release from the company that said it was ready to begin production and was accepting orders for the very limited production run of just 100 cars. No performance metrics are available thus far, though SSC says the Tuatara should break the 300-mph mark. It looks like some engine development it still taking place, but if all goes according to plan, customer deliveries should begin by the end of this year.
Source: SSC North America via YouTube
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