SSC North America continues the tease the 2019
Tuatara as the company has released a video of the car’s engine. While the engine was originally
teased back in 2013, SSC says this powertrain is “newly developed” and “differs
significantly” from the one created that was created five year. Full details
will be announced on August 24th, but the company said the “production-ready
power plant will provide the hypercar with performance specifications that far
exceed what the engineering team originally set out to achieve.”
That’s not very specific but, five years ago, the
company said the Tuatara would have a twin-turbo 6.9-liter V8 with 1350 hp and 1733 Nm of torque. The automaker went on
to say the engine was capable of producig more than 1700 hp.
While there’s no word on the displacement or output
of the new engine, SSC says the Tuatara “will not only surpass the expectations
set by earlier announcements, but also outperform other hypercars competing for
top speed and all-around performance.” This builds on previous claims that the
Tuatara has a “top speed that is projected to easily surpass the current world
record.”
While SSC didn’t mention the record holder by name,
the company is presumably talking about the Koenigsegg Agera RS. The model hit
a top speed of 457.94 km/h last year and had an average two-way
top speed of 447.18 km/h.
Those are some pretty ambitious targets, but SSC
isn’t exactly a stranger to top speed records as their Ultimate Aero become the
world’s fastest production car when it hit averaged a top speed of 412.28 km/h back in 2007.
