SSC Tuatara: The new supercar from Shelby SuperCars

Shelby SuperCars reveals that the Ultimate Aero II – pretender to the world’s fastest car crown – will be called the SSC Tuatara when it arrives

Shelby SuperCars has been the bane of the Bugatti Veyron’s existence almost since its inception, because it’s the American Muscle response to the Bugatti technological tour de force. And it keeps on coming, this time with the SSC Tuatara.

Currently the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport holds the world speed record for a production car, having wrested that from the SSC Ultimate Aero. But Jerod Shelby wasn’t going to take that usurping without a fight, so we’ve been looking forward to what we expected to be the SSC Ultimate Aero II.

But it appears that exotic names with odd etymology are the current fad for small supercar makers (aren’t they, Horacio?), so instead of the typically American ‘Ultimate Aero II’ we instead get the SSC TuaTara. Interesting.

Tuatara is apparently a Maori name for a lizard (and not a sound Miss PT makes), although it’s a lizard that’s not actually a lizard, but a reptile. Still, it seems the Tuatara ‘lizard’ has the fastest evolving DNA on the planet which we assume is the reason for Shelby naming their car the Tuatara, that and the translation of Tuatara – peaks on the back.

We think all that’s new here is the Tuatara moniker. We did report back in October last year on what we expected to be the Ultimate Aero II – with photos – and nothing much seems to have changed apart from a Tuatara badge on the back of the car in the new photos (below).

So expect a $1 million car weighing in at around 2,600 lbs with a 6.8 litre twin-turbo lump producing 1,350bhp, enough to propel the SSC Tuatara to 275mph and back in to the record books as the world’s fastest production car.

Jerod Shelby expects.

SSC Tuatara Photo Gallery

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(click any thumbnail for full size version)

SSC Tuatara introduced by Jerod Shelby Video