Shelby SuperCars Ultimate Aero II Becomes The… Ahem… Tuatara

The latest version of the SSC Ultimate Aero, briefly the world’s fastest production car, has been launched with a new name — out goes Aero II and in comes, wait for it, Tuatara.

Pronounced Too-ah-TAR-ah apparently (and thankfully!) and named after a reptile native to New Zealand, where the word in Maori means “peaks on the back”, the moniker was chosen due to the winglets on the back of the new car.

Shelby SuperCars — no connection to Carol Shelby of Cobra fame — has not told us much else about the Tuatara, but we know from previous reports that the fledging supercar manufacturer will attempt to regain the fastest car title back from Bugatti, whose Veyron SS clocked 267.856mph, beating the SSC Ultimate Aero by 11.6mph.

The Tuatara was styled by Jason Castriota, who also styled the Maserati GranTurismo,  Michael Stoscheck’s modern interpretation of the Lancia Stratos and has also done a recent stint at SAAB.  The production car will be fitted with a 7.0 litre twin turbo petrol V8 said to be good for around 1,350bhp.  Both chassis and body are made from carbon fibre, with aluminium used for the crash structures.

SSC has made no estimates as to what it thinks it can lift the production car record to, nor when it plans the attempt.  Likewise, neither do we have information on an expected price for the car or an on sale date.

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