SSC Tuatara Top Speed run apparently faked?

[harrylee1]

donkmeister said:

I know it took place between Pahrump and Las Vegas, but on which stretch of road? On one stretch, the road changes elevation at up to 100 feet per km (yup, those are the units on Google maps so I'm using them!) and goes both up and down... but on the other stretch it's clearly uphill or downhill depending on direction. If it took place on the latter then I'm not surprised by such a discrepency, even though wind resistance is such a massive force at 300+mph (if it was 300+mph).

Uppy-downy road


Clearly a hill


Too early for me to get on the conspiracy bandwagon but SSC have form for "sorta kinda maybe" record attempts instead of actual record attempts. Perhaps Shelby Jr is one of those people who is mortified about the prospect of not being seen to win at everything? I genuinely hope it turns out to be a genuine record as it would be good to have more competition in the fastest road legal / production car record.

You'll find all the info in the reddit post. People have already made all the calculations: https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/jguw5p/side...

Also Jerod Shelby has no relation to Carroll Shelby.

[cdon]

Interesting - I did think at the time that the Agera RS video looked much faster than the SSC run. Could obviously be down to many things.

[donkmeister]

harrylee1 said:

donkmeister said:

I know it took place between Pahrump and Las Vegas, but on which stretch of road? On one stretch, the road changes elevation at up to 100 feet per km (yup, those are the units on Google maps so I'm using them!) and goes both up and down... but on the other stretch it's clearly uphill or downhill depending on direction. If it took place on the latter then I'm not surprised by such a discrepency, even though wind resistance is such a massive force at 300+mph (if it was 300+mph).

Uppy-downy road


Clearly a hill


Too early for me to get on the conspiracy bandwagon but SSC have form for "sorta kinda maybe" record attempts instead of actual record attempts. Perhaps Shelby Jr is one of those people who is mortified about the prospect of not being seen to win at everything? I genuinely hope it turns out to be a genuine record as it would be good to have more competition in the fastest road legal / production car record.

You'll find all the info in the reddit post. People have already made all the calculations: https://ewww.nope_nope_eww_eww_ewww.com

Also Jerod Shelby has no relation to Carroll Shelby.

Ewww reddit... That place makes my teeth itch. When I've ventured onto reddit for anything of a non-lolz nature anyone with something useful to say is drowned out by a sea of people who think being able to google stuff makes them an authority on said stuff. I don't want to sit through many pages of people who google, so can you summarise - which bit of road was it on, and what do the calculations show wrt the effects of the topography?

[A1VDY]

What matters, who really cares??
Both totally useless on public roads and anyway, will be bought by no one..

[underwhelmist]

A1VDY said:

What matters, who really cares??
Both totally useless on public roads and anyway, will be bought by no one..

Plus, parking them in Sainsbury's car park is just asking for trouble.

[NMNeil]

donkmeister said:

I know it took place between Pahrump and Las Vegas, but on which stretch of road? On one stretch, the road changes elevation at up to 100 feet per km (yup, those are the units on Google maps so I'm using them!) and goes both up and down... but on the other stretch it's clearly uphill or downhill depending on direction. If it took place on the latter then I'm not surprised by such a discrepency, even though wind resistance is such a massive force at 300+mph (if it was 300+mph).

Uppy-downy road


Clearly a hill


Too early for me to get on the conspiracy bandwagon but SSC have form for "sorta kinda maybe" record attempts instead of actual record attempts. Perhaps Shelby Jr is one of those people who is mortified about the prospect of not being seen to win at everything? I genuinely hope it turns out to be a genuine record as it would be good to have more competition in the fastest road legal / production car record.

According to the local newspaper it was just east of Tecopa Road.
https://pvtimes.com/news/production-car-blasts-to-...
See if you can spot the cactus in question
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0wB6ddYaWQ

Edited by NMNeil on Monday 26th October 02:20

[NMNeil]

Digging around I found that the Nevada DOT closed an 11 mile section between Tecopa and Sand Valley roads in 2017 for the Koenigsegg run.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/oct/26/new-land-...
So it may be the same section for the SSC run.

[-Z-]

NMNeil said:

Digging around I found that the Nevada DOT closed an 11 mile section between Tecopa and Sand Valley roads in 2017 for the Koenigsegg run.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/oct/26/new-land-...
So it may be the same section for the SSC run.

GPS coordinates are below

[SimonTheSailor]

-Z- said:

........do you know the mathematical improbability of that happening in 2 seperate plants?.

No, what is it ?

[MDL111]

underwhelmist said:

A1VDY said:

What matters, who really cares??
Both totally useless on public roads and anyway, will be bought by no one..

Plus, parking them in Sainsbury's car park is just asking for trouble.

Excellent

[rigga]

SimonTheSailor said:

-Z- said:

........do you know the mathematical improbability of that happening in 2 seperate plants?.

No, what is it ?

Good question .....

-Z- you seem awfully obsessed with all of this.

[waynecyclist]

Bonkers if they have faked it, it will kill the brand

[-Z-]

rigga said:

Good question .....

-Z- you seem awfully obsessed with all of this.

There's a 400 post long thread about some handbags at Vmax, this to me is far more interesting. A tiny relatively unknown company roping in a very well known driver, closing a public road to obliterate a speed record... That possibly turns out to be entirely fake having hoodwinked the world's automotive media.

[Kent Border Kenny]

I'm definitely one* for conspiracy theories, and am aware of how insignificant details can be blown up to suggest something dodgy when all was as described, but I'll be interested to see how this pans out (and hopefully it really does, rather than just ending with no more statements from the manufacturer).

I'd say that the cactuses are nearly definitely the same ones, and that the different horizon is because of different exposures, but beyond that, it's hard to say.

Are the frame rates consistent, or has the "too slow" run been filmed at a higher frame rate than people realise, then replayed at a slower are, slowing the whole thing down?

The time to pass the same objects argument doesn't yet look certain either. It's measured over only a few seconds, and no-one can see when the cati are passed, only when they go out of the side of the shot.

If I were the manufacturer, and it was all genuine, I'd probably at some point put out the data from the measuring equipment, and explain how exactly the speed was measured, and what the accuracy was; there's enough of a question to make it worthwhile.

The blurred speedometer is a bit weird, has anyone said why this was done? It's not as though they were breaking the law, for example.

• - Really bad mistake in my text there, I am really NOT one for conspiracy theories.

Edited by Kent Border Kenny on Monday 26th October 15:42

[jhoneyball]

or is someone confusing mph with kmph?

[NMNeil]

The thing I question is that I can't find an independent video of the run. When you look at the video there are a few people with expensive video recording equipment, a yellow van, which may be from a TV station and 2 fire department vehicles.
So the first place I looked for any videos was the local Nevada TV stations, who would not have let such an opportunity slip; but, nothing.
Local newspaper's weren't there, "A Washington state car company 'says' it's set a world record"
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2020/oct/20/car-built...
Very odd.

[buggalugs]

The number of professional respected people who would need to go along with this is just too many imo,

if there is a genuine issue with the footage the most likley explanation is someone used the wrong footage for some reason, or the time base on the footage is wrong for some reason, recorded in one FPS and changed to another in editing without realising etc.

So many more likley explanations than a big cospiracy

[SturdyHSV]

buggalugs said:

The number of professional respected people who would need to go along with this is just too many imo,

if there is a genuine issue with the footage the most likley explanation is someone used the wrong footage for some reason, or the time base on the footage is wrong for some reason, recorded in one FPS and changed to another in editing without realising etc.

So many more likley explanations than a big cospiracy

To go full circle of conspiracy, a deliberate fps fudged 'mistake' would be execellent in so far as:

a) video comes out, gains publicity
b) eventually it's guaranteed some nerd will do an 'anaylsis' on reddit, calling it as a fake, it will all add up as fake, gains loads more publicity
c) eventual press release once publicity is at fever pitch about how it was recorded at 30fps but played back at 24fps or some such because of youtube, and how this wouldn't be a problem with the 'driven app' or whatever product it is they're selling, plenty more publicity for brand and said app.

Tinfoil hats at the ready!

[WCZ]

wouldn't be surprised if it was fake at all tbh, knew something seemed off the first time I watched it.

[harrylee1]

buggalugs said:

The number of professional respected people who would need to go along with this is just too many imo,

if there is a genuine issue with the footage the most likley explanation is someone used the wrong footage for some reason, or the time base on the footage is wrong for some reason, recorded in one FPS and changed to another in editing without realising etc.

So many more likley explanations than a big cospiracy

I mentioned before - @speedyjeff, a Koenigsegg owner who was physically there on the day, mentioned that the video 100% does not show the 331mph record run. He also says it's very strange that there weren't independent bodies there to verify the speeds like VBOX.

Also, a notable hypercar owner @dan_am_i has said that the 28" diameter of the Michelin tyres would mean that at 331mph, the engine would be at 9,900 rpm in 6th gear. The SSC Tuatara has a redline of 8,800rpm. He's commented this on SSC's official YouTube video too: