SSC teases hypercar comeback

The former holder of the production car speed record plots an apparent return to the fantasy league...

These are apparently high times for the makers of hypercars. Alongside the rash of extraordinary machines being built by industry heavyweights - the Mercedes-AMG Project One, the McLaren Senna, the Aston Martin Valkyrie, the Bugatti Chiron - there is a notable spate of start-ups, old-timers and high-hopers getting in on the act. Just in the last few months we've had the Hennessey Venom F5, the Apollo IE and the preposterous Devel Sixteen unveiled - now we can prospectively add the SSC Tuatara to the list.

If that name rings bells, then congratulations, because SSC announced the car as a concept back in 2011. Should your memory need a jog, SSC stands for Shelby SuperCars, and is the American firm which built the Ultimate Aero - the last holder of the fastest production car world record before the Veyron swept all before it. Things have been a little quiet since the high watermark of 2007; the company changed its name to SSC North American in 2012 after a rather predictable court battle with Carroll Shelby (who is most definitely not related to founder Jerod Shelby) and even showed a prototype Tuatara at the Dubai show in 2013. Since then, however, SSC has managed only to start (but definitely not complete) a new plant in Washington.

Nevertheless, the drawing board seems to have remained in working order as the previously moribund website is now alive and well, and splashed with a new teaser image of what is clearly not a five-door family hatchback. Is this a 2018 Tuatara? That's what the internet assumes - for now SSC has merely stated that ' the evolution is coming' (which may indeed be a reference to the Tuatara name, shared as it is with the uniquely evolved New Zealand lizard). Or it might not. Either way, the last concept had a 1350hp 6.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 and a projected top speed of 276mph so it's fair to assume that SSC has continued working on something in the silly league of fast.

Expect whatever results to be in the silly league of money, too. Five years ago, SSC tentatively priced the Tuatara at $1.3m. If its follow-up ever makes it from teaser to feature (a process you'll want to take with the obligatory armful of salt), it'll almost certainly occupy the same rarefied market position as the erstwhile Aero, although - given the competition - it will do well to equal its predecessor's place in Guiness's estimation.

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