Cars : SSC Ultimate Aero
Cars : SSC Ultimate Aero
The SSC Ultimate Aero is an American-built mid-engine sports car by SSC North America (formerly known as Shelby SuperCars). The higher-performance limited production version previously held the Guinness Book of World Records record for being the fastest production car in the world, but the record is held now by Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, which reached the speed of 431.072 km/h. The SSC Ultimate Aero does not have electronic aids such as ABS brakes or traction control, as according to Jerod Shelby, "Early design philosophy on the car was to make it a driver's car. I wanted a car that you not only throttled with your right foot but at times you could steer with your right foot. "
The Aero and the Shelby SuperCars company are the brainchildren of Jerod Shelby (no relation to late racing driver and sports car builder Carroll Shelby), who started out building exotic "replicars" including a Fiero-based Ferrari F355 replica and a Lamborghini Diablo replica based on a space frame which later was used in the Ultimate Aero prototype. Jerod later moved from building replicas to designing his first supercar and after seven years it finally began to take shape. Both the basic Aero model and the Ultimate Aero are no longer in production.
The exterior of the SSC Ultimate Aero XT will boast a two-tone paint scheme never before seen on any Ultimate Aero and the will never be seen on any new Tuatara. The customer can select any two colors he wants and SSC will place one color up the center of the car, over the roof, down the tail, on the mirrors, and on the lower half of the vehicle. The second color will fill in the sides of the car and the outermost sides of the hood.
The overall styling of the car is the same as the standard Ultimate Aero, sans the wheels coded to the customer’s selection. It boasts a wedge-style front end that leads to a low-slung roof that swoops rearward to the tail,. The tail swoops upward slightly to give the Aero XT a little rear downforce and this small wing races to its full height when braking to give the brakes a little help.
Around the back end of the Ultimate Aero XT, you have the six taillight system seen on the standard Ultimate Aero, along with its center-exit exhaust system.
The Ultimate Aero’s exterior was plenty sexy, so we are glad to see SSC do only minimal changes to set this special edition apart from the rest.
Interior
There is not too much information given on the interior styling, but we can assume that it is pretty much the same styling as the base model Ultimate Aero, but from the pictures it looks like the colors are coded to match the exterior, though this is not confirmed by SSC.
As for amenities, you get A/C, power windows, power mirrors, tilt steering, 7.5-inch LCD screen, a 10-speaker premium stereo system with a CD and DVD player. You also get a full-time rear-view camera and a navigation system.
Engine and Drivetrain
Behind the seats is where the big difference is seen in this version of the Ultimate Aero. It features the all-new 423.6 cubic-inch engine that the Tuatara uses, boasting 1,300 horsepower at 6,800 rpm and 1,004 pound-feet of torque at 6,800 rpm. Also borrowed from its big brother was its cooling system and fuel-delivery system. That’s a 13-horsepower increase over the base Ultimate Aero, but a 108 pound-feet loss, which is odd. It does, however, rev up to a tout 9,200 rpm before hitting the engine’s redline.
Getting these kinds of ponies from this engine requires a pair of turbochargers pumping in tons of pressure. Keeping the forced air cool are a pair of water-to-air intercoolers, which do not become heat-soaked and therefore useless like air-to-air intercoolers.
Mated to the engine is a 7-speed triple -disc carbon clutch, which is bound to have lightning-fast shifts and precise response, and tosses power to only the rear wheels. This transmission does not have a traditional floor shifter. Rather, it has a paddle-shift interface behind the steering wheel.
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