SSC North America announced its hypercar two months ago Tuatara the fastest production car in the world. As it was announced, during races on the 11-kilometer stretch of SR 160 in the US state of Nevada, he gained 484.53 km / h in one direction and an incredible 532.93 km / h in the other. The arithmetic mean was 508.73 km / h – according to the rules, it is this result that should be recorded as a record. However, just a few days after the publication of the official video from the tests, it turned out that the recording did not correspond to the stated results, so the company set out to repeat the races in order to remove all charges against them.
This time, the top speed measurements were carried out on the Florida highway, and the company was confident that the hypercar could defend its status as the fastest production car in the world. For the races they took the same car as two months earlier, but this time the owner of the car was driving instead of the pilot Oliver Webb. And to accurately measure the speed, the engineers used five different GPS devices at once, including two Racelogic devices – their work was monitored by the official representatives of the developer company.
The first day was designed for test drives: according to the plan, they were needed so that the owner of the car got used to the return of the biturbo-eight 5.9 (the power of the unit is 1369 hp when running on regular gasoline and increases to 1774 hp when using E85 fuel ) and high speeds. The second day was initially set aside for test races. However, due to the weather, the entire program had to be postponed to the second day, and only a few hours remained for the owner’s trial runs. For this purpose, the engineers temporarily limited the engine recoil in an attempt to minimize the risk of an accident.
With each run, the power was gradually increased, and under conditions of a lack of time for the entire test program, the engine did not have time to cool down after throws at high speeds. The situation was aggravated by the wires of the measuring equipment stretched from the passenger compartment under the hood, which became the reason for its opening during one of the races. In the end, the engine overheated – this led to the failure of two spark plugs, but even on six cylinders Tuatara accelerated to 404 km / h. Moreover, the car managed to gain this speed during the last attempt, without breaking even half of the total length of the track.
Obviously, SSC North America will not end up trying to defend its honor here: the company still has no doubt that Tuatara will set a world speed record. Let’s remind, now three more models claim the status of the fastest production car in the world. Last year “almost serial” Bugatti Chiron under the control of test driver Andy Wallace, it accelerated to 490.484 km / h – two races in both directions are prescribed by the rules, but the Chiron did not go in the opposite direction. In addition, soon the Texas company Hennessey will begin testing the serial version of the hypercar. Venom F5, and in addition Koenigsegg prepares to run the new model Jesko Absolut… So far, the record belongs to the Swedish hypercar Koenigsegg Agera RSwhich officially reached 446.97 km / h three years ago.
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