The Fastest Production Car In the World

Posted by Raymond Alvin on 11/16/20

The race for the fastest production car has been going on since the late 19th century. This record has been highly coveted and contested. In 1993, the legendary McLaren F1 reached 240.1 mph, beating the previous record holder by about 28 mph. Additionally, the McLaren F1 held the record for an astounding 12 years. In 2005, the Bugatti Veyron dethroned the McLaren F1 with a top speed of 253 mph. Then, two years later, the SSC Ultimate Aero beat the Bugatti Veyron, going 256 mph. Then, three years after that, in 2010, the Bugatti Veyron Supersport beat the SSC Ultimate Aero by going 267 mph. In 2017, the Koenigsegg Agera RS got the top speed record after going 277 mph. Apart from the Mclaren F1, the top speed record has always been taken every few years and has always only improved slowly, by a few mph. However, the SSC Tuatara recently reached 331 mph, beating the Koenigsegg Agera RS by an astonishing 55 mph. The SSC Tuatara also became the first production car to hit 300 mph, another highly contested record. (The first car to get 300 mph was a modified Bugatti Chiron. However, it was modified and was not road legal during the top speed run.) I was shocked when I watched the video of the SSC Tuatara’s top speed run. I had never even heard of the SSC Tuatara and I was expecting the first production car to get to 300 mph to be the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut. However, some questions about the top speed run have arisen. People have watched the top speed run and looked at some of the car’s statistics and things do not seem to add up. The SSC Tuatara was tested at the same road as the Koenigsegg Agera RS: State Route 160. People have slowed down the video of the top speed run and counted the dashed lines on the road to calculate the road’s distance along different medians. People used the distances of the medians and provided times to calculate the car’s speed. The video showed the entry and exit speed of the car through these medians and they were both higher than the average speed that people calculated, which is mathematically impossible. (People did the same thing with the Koenigsegg Agera RS and all the math checked out.) SSC has recently announced that they will retest the Tuatara’s top speed.