SSC TUATARA
Although the facility
will open in early 2015, deliveries of the upcoming Tuatara won’t begin right
away. The company will run a six-month test-assembly process before the first
supercars are built to cover existing preorders, the report adds. However, SSC
SSC plans to manufacturer 12 Tuataras by the end of 2015, which would represent
a massive improvement in terms of production capacity. Previously, SSC
employees were able to to put together only four to five vehicles a year.
But Jarod Shelby says
SSC won’t stop at just 12 examples per year. Annual production is scheduled to
jump up to 24 to 30 units, even though each car is hand assembled, with no
robotics included in the process. The number of employees will thus grow from
14 to about 26. Naturally, SSC is already working on brand-new models,
including an all-electric supercar envisioned to feature "an adaptable
electric drive system." We don’t know what that is, but we bet it will be
really fast.
The Tuatara is SSC’s
second supercar, replacing the Ultimate Aero, which was retired in 2013. The
Tuatara keeps the Ultima Ultimate Aero’s mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive
configuration and features a huge, 6.9-liter V-8 under the hood. The billet
aluminum block is force fed by a pair of turbochargers, and SSC claims it will
churn out 1,350 horsepower and 1,280 pound-feet of torque.
The car will tip the
scales at only 2,750 pounds due to its carbon-fiber construction and aluminum
crumple zones, resulting in a power-to-weight ratio of more than 1,000
horsepower per tonne. This will not only better the Koenigsegg One:1 ’s ratio,
but SSC also claims the Tuatara will shatter numerous speed records.
Preliminary figures show the supercar will accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in only
2.3 seconds and reach a top speed of 276 mph. For the record, the Bugatti
Veyron Super Sport , the world’s fastest production car as of June 2014, took
the Guinness World Record benchmark to 267.857 mph in 2010.
Expect for the Tuatara
to fetch at least $1.3 million once it hits dealerships.
With major assembly
development entering the final phases for the Tuatara, the engine package
completed its final testing and validation during a last full day of dyno
testing last week where the newly developed SSC power plant was put through its
paces in a grueling effort to find any weaknesses. At completion of all the
durability and performance testing, the Tuatara power plant passed all project
specifications with flying colors. This newly developed 423 cu.in. twin turbo
V-8 engine will come standard in the Tuatara producing 1350 horsepower and a
staggering 1280 lb-ft of torque running on standard United States
"premium" 91 octane fuel and has also shown that it is easily capable
of over 1700 HP for those owners that don't want or need to be buffered by
regulations. After three years of engineering, the final results are an
amazingly docile package with incredible daily drivable characteristics that
truly mask the savage beast within.
