Bugatti shocked the motoring world last year when it announced that a prototype of the Chiron Super Sport 300+ had hit a top speed of 304.773 mph (490.484 km/h). One man that wasn’t particularly impressed was Jerod Shelby, the man behind SSC that recently set a new production car top speed record with a customer-spec Tuatara.
To be verified by Guinness for a record, a production car needs to complete two top speed runs in opposite directions, with the average being the final number. Koenigsegg did this with the Agera RS, but Bugatti chose to only run the Chiron Super Sport 300+ in a single direction. The French car manufacturer claims this was because its Ehra-Lessien test track wouldn’t be safe to run in the opposite direction. Shelby thinks there’s a different reason.
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“To me there’s definitely theoretical limits with every vehicle,” Shelby said in a recent interview with Road & Track. “I mean, this comes down to talking about engineering and science. We’re talking coefficient of drag, horsepower, gear ratios. In a perfect world, you and I or a lot of engineers can calculate what that theoretical speed is. The Chiron [Super Sport 300+], in a theoretical world, can do 286 mph (460 km/h). And that’s in production trim,” he says.
The prototype used by Bugatti during its top speed run had a lower ride height than the production model as well as a roll cage and no passenger seat, and its electronic limiter was removed. Based on Shelby’s calculations, the limited-run Chiron couldn’t exceed its published 304 mph vmax without modifications.
Even though he doesn’t think Bugatti’s top speed is valid, he wanted to soundly beat it with the Tuatara. With British racing driver Oliver Webb behind the wheel, SSC did just that, recording a two-way average of 316.11 mph (508.7 km/h) and a one-way top speed of 331 mph (532.7 km/h). Mission accomplished.
