The SSC Tuatara started with a bang in 2021. The American hypermotor achieved a record speed with its second official attempt and beat back the critics of the infected first attempt last year. Although the Tuatara failed to reach its required speed during the first race, its average speed of 455.2 kilometers per hour (285.9 miles per hour) broke the previous top speed record set by the Koenigsegg Agera RS in November 2017.
But that was not the end of the tuatara’s top speed hunt. Dr. Larry Caplin, the owner and manager of the record-breaking Tuatara, said earlier that he was eager to come back and try to hit 482.8 km / h.
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And he’s pretty confident he can get that point. In an interview with Highest gearDr. Caplin said he is comfortable reaching the target. He had 0.6 km ahead of the flag at 286.1 km / h, which was the absolute top speed of his Tuatara in the record-breaking attempt. He believes that a little more will come. The question now is when and where.
To put matters in perspective, the Tuatara’s second official run took place at the Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds at Space Florida’s Shuttle Landing Facility. It had only 3.7 km of runway to use, and the Tuatara used 3 km to reach the absolute top speed.
As a result, dr. Caplin gets to high speeds as fast as possible, which built up heat much earlier and was different from the top speed efforts of other supercars.
By comparison, the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport’s 304 km / h run was done by Ehra Lessen, who had longer 8.7 km straights and a bench angle so that it could slowly build up over a great distance. The highway in Nevada, where the controversial first Tuatara run took place, had a 7-mile stretch available.