Did the SSC Tuatara REALLY Set a 331mph World Record?

hi guys i'm smee hello and welcome back to the channel where you join me today for an unusual video to talk in detail about last week's world record now yesterday i actually had some filming plans which had to be cancelled thanks to some atrocious weather so it got me looking at the news from about a week ago of the ssc tuatara breaking a production road car world record top speed going 331 miles an hour in one direction making the return journey for the average over 300 as well at 301 for a record of an insane 316 miles per hour that's actually also over the next barrier threshold of 500 kilometers per hour as well a truly unbelievable feat now i wanted to shoot a video talking about this talking about world records talking about top speeds so i started looking further at the video that was published of this run of this drive and it introduced quite a few more questions for me especially with some further research and analysis some things that might not necessarily be exactly as they seem which today i'd like to talk about in detail [Music] let's start with a bit of backstory then to set some context to explain where i'm coming from and in particular with the shmee150 channel now i've always had the tagline living the supercar dream sharing with you the experiences of luxury cars supercars hypercars and all things automotive working on a very neutral basis with all manufacturers with all car brands from luxury car companies like audi bmw mercedes to sports and supercars like porsche ferrari lamborghini mclaren to the hypercar brands pagani rimac the 300 mile per hour contenders koenigsegg bugatti hennessy ssc i'm unbiased between them i don't have any financial ties to one of these companies i'm not yet at least in the market for a 300 mile per hour car who knows what the future has in store but i want to take a very neutral look at this to go through what we're looking at the video that's actually in front of us because top speed world records matter companies go taking part in motorsports series spending huge amounts of money breaking lap records taking top speeds because it sells cars it interacts with the market it's top trumps customers want to have the fastest car but is what they're going to get actually the car that you see this matters and often these records are called into question because of this there are lots of conspiracy theories people trying to dig in to try and understand what was done was it actually achieved is it actually the real car are we looking at a real video there are lots of questions that get asked but this this is the first time i would say i've ever watched one of these videos and i've had enough questions that i wanted to share it with you to talk about it in more detail to share some of my findings and some of the findings that i've read from others as well because top speed world records matter and i'm not sure as i said if this is exactly what we're being presented and told that it actually is the location of choice by ssc to do these runs with the tuatara is actually a familiar piece of tarmac it is the exact same road but just over three years prior koenigsegg had done their record at the time with the two-way average with the agira rs of 277.9 miles per hour now the fascinating thing about that is it gives us two videos on the exact same stretch of road that we can compare a little bit later on we'll get to that but it's a road to the west of las vegas in nevada of course in the usa nevada highway 160. it's actually a dead arrow straight road for a long distance a bit of a bowl it actually goes downhill and then up on the other side but it's a road out towards perramp near to spring mountain and actually a place i've driven myself when i was out there with my ford gt albeit i didn't have the roads closed so i had to follow the speed limits not quite the same as going to the v-max but a perfectly suited stretch closed for the purpose when multiple cars have now done their top speed runs one of the interesting things about the tuatara run is it was done in the south easterly direction down towards las vegas the faster run we should say whereas the koenigsegg's faster run was in the other direction but we do have koenigsegg's run as well heading back down towards las vegas to give a bit of an overlay to put these side by side the records of course have been stepped up quite dramatically kunig's eggs runs back then the faster run to the north west was 284.55 miles an hour the slower run to the south east was 271.19 miles an hour making the 277.9 average the tuatara's top speed of 331 is just a bonkers figure to begin with 331.15 in the faster direction southeast with the slower direction coming in at just over 301 going to the northwest for an average of 316.1 that stepped the game up by 38.2 miles an hour now i'm not gonna lie this did initially grab my attention because these things tend to go in small increments that's nearly 40 miles an hour faster that's not just a small jump and remember this isn't on specific tyres these are tires rated for significantly lower speeds this is this was quite a surprise to begin with you'd think maybe the record would go up 5 10 15 20 miles an hour at most this is a gigantic leap so it got me digging more into these runs to take a better look at them and of course to study the road a little bit further this is where i would finally like to study this video the published video of the top speed record run at 331 miles per hour in the southeasterly direction on the 160 towards las vegas now as we're going through it we can do a series of very basic calculations some super simple maths that everybody learns as a youngster that distance equals speed times time you might have had another way of learning it but it's always correct if you know the distance a car has traveled between two points and you know the time that it took you can always work out the average speed that it must have been traveling through that section now this video gives a few interesting markers let's take a look at the map to go through this in some detail here we are to the west of las vegas we have the 160 up towards perramp and if we zoom in right here you get to the intersection with tacopa road this is where both koenigsegg and ssc started their runs you have a suitable parking area and you have the two separated carriageways and this is where the local enforcement uh moved traffic so that it was all going down the opposite side of the road leaving this side perfectly clear for the runs now in this case we know it headed to the southeast and you will see some very distinct medians this is the first one just here we come down towards the second and there are three of these we're going to look at because they're very very obvious in the video there's no mistaking them the road itself has actually been relayed in the years since the koenigsegg video but these haven't moved you can look at the historical data on google maps and see exactly where they are but they're very very visible when you're watching the video in fact just to quickly show you can see just here on the top right the median is very very obvious there's no missing it yes we can't be super precise with the exact moment with the moving camera angle but we do have a pretty good idea to be close enough you know here it's about 307 miles per hour but this is where it gets interesting if we go to this view to the satellite view with the medians we have the start point we have the first median and this is where i'm going to use google's measuring tool from here measure distance and click there and we have a distance of approximately 1.13 miles yes that could be very slightly out but if it is we're talking a couple of percent we're not talking dramatic dramatically in huge numbers if we then move and look between the second and the third medians to get this recording it comes in at 1.41 miles so we've got those two numbers between the first and second median and the second and third and this is where if we go back to the video we know that this has just crossed the point for the fastest section between the second and third medians it's well on the way very high acceleration and sixth gear on the car we will talk about the gearing as well very shortly this is where it hits the record now the interesting thing on the video is it pauses for just shy of four seconds so we need to subtract that from the total time before it continues it was at 307 obviously it's been up to 331 and now it's a gentle cruise lift off taking it easy all the way until i can tell you it gets to the next median at about 242 miles an hour or so we're going to see that in just a second and you'll see how obvious it is there look at the left there's the median 241 242 that's about the range so if i take that video put it into my editing program and of course i added a lot of videos to make these videos that you're watching here just make it a smooth transition we get the time now that video clip i'm going to show you some numbers here which basically reveal all gives us this between the first and second medians we measured 1.13 miles in that there is no pausing the video takes 22.64 seconds that means the average speed is 179.7 indisputable except it entered at the first median at 192 and it was accelerating all the way to the exit of that median at 307 so at all times the telemetry data that we are given says that it is going above the average speed that we calculate now this can only mean basically one of two things either the video is slowed down which would be a bizarre move and quite a significant slowdown i'm totally estimating but we would be talking about 30 or something or the telemetry data with the speeds that we're seeing both on the overlay in the digital edit but also on the laptop screen in the car because you can read those are not correct now i will emphasize as well the dashboard on the 360 view is actually blurred out you can't see what the car's dashboard itself says that makes no sense but let's look at the second to third medians maybe that's just a glitch right we measured about 1.42 miles i had before we have the total time including the pause we'll take out the pause which i've measured in frames to be precise it's a 30 fps video 1 30th of a second per frame the total time therefore 24.4 which gives us that average but in the time that it should have been averaging 209.5 it went from 307 up to 331 and then lifted off to 242. so again it's always going faster than the average speed which is a mathematical impossibility i'm not making that up that's simple maths which you can't dispute it makes no sense that it can be faster so this is just one thing that makes you think okay that's that's clearly not right and you can look at all of the files yourself you'll see exactly the same so what else what what could this be i want to take an approximation in my mind from the video that i'm looking at ignoring the overlay data as to how fast this car was going but there are also two other methods one more visual and one mechanical which lead towards the same kind of number now based purely on the video and remember i don't have the full tracking information it feels like the peak speed that this car reaches is around 280 miles per hour now that is indisputably fast and there are perhaps reasons why this couldn't be the actual run maybe there's been a bit of a mix up with the edit maybe it has inadvertently been slowed down by mistake maybe this wasn't the final run itself to 331 but the laptop in the passenger seat showing the same information that we see on the overlays certainly suggests that it is there are a few other confusing things you can't see the speedo it's blurred out but it doesn't fully add up which is why i'm questioning this and sharing some of these findings which people have helped find or helped lead the direction towards now one other method to try and calculate it as well if i show you back in the video is that you can see the painted lines on the road and in the u.s on a road like this they follow a very specific formula again they are always painted 10 foot of white line 30 foot of gap this road is no different and therefore if you watch the video back at a very slow speed you can count how many lines there are again get the distance not relying on the medians but it does completely add up if you'd like to check this yourself and ultimately you're going to end up with the same speed so again about 280 miles per hour this is the thing that's totally bizarre what why is this video not what it seems why is what we're looking at not the run that it claims to be and that's what i don't understand another thing for interest let's take a look at the tuatara run and the koenigsegg agera rs run like i said the same piece of road and there's an interesting video actually that's been brought to my attention that shows us a little bit more about this and this is starting from the second median so the agira rs has already arrived at the second median that's where the tuatara meets it so the two cars are now exactly in sync we have the tuatara actually at this time going a touch faster than the aguero rs as you can see over 300 miles an hour to 265 this is in real time from both videos no dodgy sinking no running of one faster than the other but the ultimate result that you're about to witness despite the tuatara being up to 60 miles an hour faster and even now still 40 miles an hour faster and slowing down still faster still faster we reach the median yet the aguero rs gets there significantly faster that's not a little bit faster that's the two videos overlaid next to one another with their telemetry data where even though yes the tuatara is now breaking and is now going slower but all the way up until the point where the aguero rs made the third median the tuatara was faster it is impossible again mathematically for a faster car to take longer to reach the same point even if it broke later that doesn't matter to have got there slower it makes no sense it makes no sense and again you can only question how how there's another small detail which really stands out to me as well if we go back to the published video as it's approaching towards the record top speed you will notice that the dashboard is blurred the speedo on the dashboard is impossible to read now at the exact moment that it's at 3 31 on the telemetry also on the laptop screen in the passenger seat the dashboard if you take a screenshot of this and work backwards from it to make it clearer is actually reading 301 in the build up period it's going through the 290s hits 300 and briefly shows 301 now this is very intriguing as well because a production road car can never under read on the speedometer the speed that you're going by law in the usa and in europe and everywhere else it is absolutely critical that a speedometer can only tell you over what you're doing and never under there is always a factored in margin for error and for example in my cars when i've been driving at high speed on the german autobahn d-restricted sections in my ford gt an american supercar as well when i've had 202 miles per hour on the dashboard my gps telemetry data has told me about 190. it's quite a significant margin especially at these much higher speeds now a guess from this purely guess conspiracy theory here if it's showing 301 on the dashboard take off a couple of percent and you're in the 280s is it possible that that's perhaps again the speed that it's going linking up with the video that we're actually looking at i'm not quite sure why it's blurred perhaps if it is under reading because it's not a final production out on the roads car that could be a reason why it's been blurred just to avoid the confusion from it but for me that's actually added more confusion rather than eliminated any now another thing to talk about which is very technical so i won't go into this in full detail but the car runs ssc's own 5.9 liter twin turbocharged v8 on pump gas it makes 1 350 horsepower on e85 like koenigsegg run it makes 1 750 horsepower which is massive it has a seven-speed automated manual cheamer gearbox the gear ratios of the chima gearbox are out there you can look at the details you can work out and therefore calculate from it knowing as well what tires the car is running the standard stock fitment 335 rear tyres the sport cup 2 30 profile 20 inch there are photos of that from the day and you can calculate therefore the maximum speed that the car can go in each gear based on its maximum rev limit which is 8800 rpm for this car now we know they're running in sixth gear because after this run on the deceleration phase you see ollie my friend driving it shift up into seventh gear and he's then notified over the radio that he's gone 331 because of course he's looking at a dashboard which we believe at the time is or i think they believed at the time was incorrect and he goes into seventh gear so this run is entirely in sick he's even confirmed actually that it's in sixth gear as well it's waiting for the moment of the uh the news because it's quite cool of course the excitement of having broken the top speed and having set a new record and this is where you can then see the dashboard so you can actually calculate some of the revs as well from seeing the rpm so with this gearbox and this engine and these tyres and these configurations this car in sixth gear on the red line 8800 rpm would be going 293 miles per hour if it's a little bit shy which it looks like it is in the video and ollie also did an interview where he said he thought there was a little bit more to go that would again put it in the low 280s a bit more to go a bit shy of the red line mechanically that's indisputable now the reason to use sixth not seventh you might be wondering is because sixth gear is already basically an overdrive fifth gear is the closest to the one to one ratio in this car it's already just beyond sixth is a start of an overdrive a seventh gear is another overdrive which means to be able to break through the power threshold with the components they would pretty much likely shred up to have done that speed in sixth would also have to be at i think about 10 400 rpm which again with this engine configuration it probably wouldn't survive as well now i'm not the full technical minded guy but i've been speaking to people who are experts in this field and they've told me this data which i'll put down below as well to read and have in more clarity but again we're pointing more facts whether it's the painted lines the speedo the medians or the gear ratios all pointing to 280s i i'm trying my hardest to find reasons but you you can see what i where this is taking me what happens next then and what does this actually mean because it has a big impact on this end of the industry in general it's a video that i didn't set out trying to come up with a conspiracy theory that's never been the intention and in fact when they announced the record i even posted a congratulatory message because that's my friend ollie webb actually driving the car and i've met some of the team that are working on the event putting together the production and everything to do with it but it doesn't add up to me there are questions that are open and i'm sure you guys have some of these questions now as well but when brands go for top speed records when they know that there is going to be this much attention this many eyes on it there needs to be a backup data device and then a backup for the backup and even a backup for the backup for the backup for the main data device so that there can be no questions left about it it it doesn't add up and if you take some of the other videos like koenigsegg's video on the same road if you do the simple mathematics we did earlier with that video you get the right numbers you get the numbers that they say so why why don't you with this i'm hoping there's something i've overlooked and i would love to hear from anybody who might have some proper insight as to what that could actually be what what what is it about this that we haven't got right because it's not just one question if there was one question i guess you would ignore it and just pretend that you just didn't understand but it's question after question after question and let's let's think more about this you know bugatti launched the share on supersport 300 plus last year the first production car to go 300 miles per hour which they sold 30 units of the customers thought they were buying the fastest car in the world is this faster now or is this not faster does that have an impact you know will customers pull deposits to purchase tuataras based on something that could not be genuine i i don't know and these are all open questions and i know it's the same for for other companies and then beyond that there's the simple fact that we're now driving with a step up of 38.2 miles per hour which means people are getting into cars next time this is done to maybe aim for 350 and this is really raising the risk and danger stakes you know stepping up such a significant amount not 5 miles an hour not 10 miles an hour is is a major thing and i know for ollie driving the car this was a this was a big deal this was a big big deal to drive at these kind of speeds is i can't even imagine i've driven at 210 to 20 miles an hour and just thinking that the step up from there is the motorway speed limit again it's just gigantic performance and numbers and the tuatara is no doubt a very very fast car but we need to get some answers to this we need to get to the bottom of it and we need to understand why this video isn't what it seems because i want this record to be correct i want it to stand but i need to see something more than this to confirm it for me so there are my thoughts please do give me some feedback i'd love to hear if there's something glaring that we've missed across the whole thing but for now let me know that's it thanks for watching guys i'll see you very soon cheers

Channel: Shmee150

Views: 1,105,205

Rating: 4.9048638 out of 5

Keywords: SSC, Tuatara, World Record, Top Speed, SSC Tuatara, Real, Question, Data, Analysis, Fake, Fraud, Cheat, Cheated, Doubt, Concern, Questions, Measurements, Calculations, Verification, Video, Record, Fastest, Fast, 331mph, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, Stats, Statistics, Shmee, Shmee150

Id: 3daTG4_JS_4

Length: 21min 15sec (1275 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/0mbreBlanc0]

It seems to appear that SSC's instagram page has turned off their comments.

[u/AltruisticDistrict]

This is baffling if true. I really hope for their sake that they actually have a car that can hit 331mph.

Quoting Gabe Newell,

"Don't ever, ever try to lie to the internet - because they will catch you. They will de-construct your spin. They will remember everything you ever say for eternity."

[u/willsabelcourtney]

Also interesting: this behind-the-scenes story from Autoblog — more specifically, the scene it describes of the record run:

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/10/19/ssc-tuatara-record-run-backstory/

"Webb hits it, and speeds off for his third and final pass. Shelby and his crew followed behind, but they were not ready for what was awaiting them at the end of the road.

“By the time we get there, he’s obviously out of the car,” Shelby said. “And he was sitting on the ground with his head down. And it didn’t look good.”

As he walked up, Jared said that Webb told him this: “I’m done Jared. I’ll never do that again. I got hit with two different blasts of cross winds, and it moved me two lanes over and into the rumble strips. I had a really close call.”

Shelby told us that Webb was truly shaken by the experience … but right after that, Webb said that he “saw a big speed on the display.” The crew immediately got into the data, and saw that he had hit 331 mph."

The purported record video certainly doesn't show any big crosswinds knocking the car into the rumble strips. Nor does Webb seem like he's suffered a near-death experience at the end of it.

The story does say that Webb hit 287 on the (crosswind-less) first pass, thus breaking the record — which would seem much more in line with both this video both in terms of his reaction and the speeds the car seems to actually be hitting.

[u/[deleted]]

Some good evidence. You cant argue with the math.
Either:
1: This is not the video of the top speed run. Which they might not have for some reason.
EDIT 1b: The video is slowed down. The editing might messed up the framerate between 24/30 fps. That's around 25% so that would kinda add up, but I'm not really familiar with video editing.
2. Or they faked it. Which I honestly have a very hard time believing.

[u/c_tsnx]

SSC disabling Instagram comments is super suspicious... Just don't really get what they hoped to gain with this. If it's real, release the GPS data. If not, why? Suicide for the brand and everyone involved.

[u/toniglandy1]

Having such a big youtuber make a video about it is bound to give this traction. SSC will have to give a statement. Best case would be : "editor used wrong run, poopsie, here's the video of the actual run"

[u/somedude456]

When Shmee calls you out, you done fucked up!

[u/mr_lab_rat]

Question about gearing. Do these cars also not have a final drive (rear differential) that could change the top speed in individual gears?

[u/Doctor_Lazerbeamz]

What I don't understand is that if it was faked and the evidence against it is so damning why hasn't any news outlets or automotive authorities said anything?