Confusion: SSC Ultimate Aero reclaims title for world’s fastest production car

Now this sounds extremely confusing- though we’ll talk about it later.

Shelby Supercars (SSC), makers of the SSC Ultimate Aero are claiming back the title of the World’s fastest production car. This was announced after Guinness forfeited the coveted title from the Bugatti Veyron SS under the breach of world record protocol whereby Bugatti had disabled the speed limiter, whereas their productions cars are electronically limited to 415.21 kph (258 mph). The Veyron SS had surpassed the SSC Ultimate Aero’s speed record of 411.99 kph (256 mph) by setting a new speed record of 429.69 kph (267 mph) at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessien track in Germany.

SSC Founder Jerod Shelby said, “This wasn’t how we planned to reclaim the record. But it will do until the Tuatara takes a run at several records that exist out there. Although, it was still a nice surprise. After we held the record for 3 years, I was happy to hand over the crown to Bugatti back in 2010. I think it’s good for the supercar industry to have competition. It keeps the enthusiast hungry. We’ve also always felt that it would be better to break someone else’s record next time, instead of just re-breaking our own record.”

“The “top speed” record came with a stigma… Enthusiasts felt that the whole engineering focus must have been directed at achieving that one top speed feat. We found it difficult to get people to see around our top speed record and recognize all the other engineering feats produced by the SSC team, such as ride quality, passenger comfort, record braking handling, braking, and driver predictability. SSC has its sights set on the one-lap record at Nurburgring to showcase the engineering prowess of the SSC Tuatara,” he added.

Now here’s the confusion- if Bugatti Veyron electronically restricts its production cars to 415.21 kph (258 mph), its still faster than the SSC Ultimate Aero’s 411.99 kph (256 mph). Might be that the production version of the Veyron wasn’t put to the record run. If this doesn’t resolve the confusion, there is another. You might remember reading here about the Hennessey Venom GT recently hitting a record speed of 427.60 kph (265.69 mph). Where does that go? Or maybe the Venom GT’s sprint is still under attestation and the SSC Ultimate Aero might enjoy a few days of glory till the official word is out.