This Is The World’s Fastest Car

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 10, 8:48AM EDT

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This Is The World’s Fastest Car — © Justin Sullivan / Getty Images News via Getty Images

The battle for the world’s fastest car has played out in the news recently. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, claims his new Tesla S Plaid can race from 0 to 60 MPH in 1.98 seconds. The newest Tesla is run by a set of electric engines that put out 1,020 HP. The figure bests the numbers for gas-powered, extremely expensive supercars. Among these, one of the most well-known is the Porsche 911 GT RS. However, its pace from 0 to 60 is only 2.7 seconds.

The fastest car in the world is not made by these widely known car companies at all. The SSC Tuatara claims it holds the pole position for speed. Unfortunately, its claim is based on a different measure than 0 to 60 MPH time, so the answer to the question of which is the “fastest car” remains a debate.

According to car magazine MotorTrend, “The Tuatara hit a two-way average speed of 282.9 mph using 2.3 miles of a three-mile runway at Kennedy Space Center, with the data being captured using Racelogic VBOX equipment, as well as hardware and/or software from Life Racing and Garmin.” In another test, it hit a top speed of 315.7 MPH. It is powered by a 1,750 HP engine.

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Among the differences it has with the Model S Plaid is that you will probably not find the Tuatara on the road, although it is “street legal” which means it can be driven on regular highways.

The fastest car is built by SSC North America, a company almost no one has heard of. It was founded in 1998 by Jerod Shelby. He is not related to racecar design great Carroll Shelby. The Tuatara has a price tag of $1.9 million, well above the $130,000 Tesla charges for the Model S Plaid.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.