SSC Tuatara

[NSXType-R]

I think one difference is the fact that the first Zonda and Koenigsegg didn't seem like a kit car built purely for bragging rights. "OURS IS FASTEREST" "Ours is nicely built and has a unique interior with many bespoke parts." "BAH OURS IS FASTERER SO IT ARE BETTERER." Etc. This is a perception mind, not what I believe is fact. I've not read much about how the SSCs are to drive, are they as joyously easy as a Zonda or as brutally satisfying as a CCX? [Or so the press would have us believe].

The Noble is rather more cheaper than the alternatives, so their kittishness is somewhat more excusable given the performance on offer. Probably. Personally I'd still go for something with a nicer interior and sacrifice some outright pace.

Is there any interior shots of the Tuatara yet?

It's true that SSC started out with speed runs- but then again, in a more subtle and way more expensive way, that was the way the Veyron was billed too- we can go to 252 mph, it's just that that was one of the many things it could also do.

I also didn't like the SSC for its kit car looks and scream at you speed runs. But SSC also doesn't try and set 'ring times every other week. Perhaps it isn't much of a handler, but there hasn't been a serious review of it either.

And Euro snobbery I feel takes a big role in this- remember the whole Mexican super car thing with Top Gear? They smash Euro cars too, but that was uncalled for in my opinion. If Honda had come up with a mid engined super car like that, they would have thought of it as the next best thing. I don't even think Top Gear ever tested the SSC seriously around its track.

But now is different, the Tuatara definitely brings the image that SSC has grown up and smartened up.

Yes, Pagani and Koenisegg both came out with seemingly much more finished products- visually. But with most of us not having driven any of them, what right do we have to judge any of them off the bat?

I mean, isn't that what Bentley started out doing? Putting the largest engine he could find in the lightest body?

This is just the modern version of it, and I applaud SSC for it. They could be like Fisker or Saleen and come out with vaporware.

Not to snub Pagani, but they're not even road legal in the US. Not to say that it's a determining factor, and I know Pagani made a big effort to be road legal in the US, but at least the company has some forethought and isn't just a kit car. At the very least they're semi-serious about this.

And SSC isn't even like Henessey, where they decided to stick an engine in a stretched Lotus Elise. Designing a car from the ground up has to be an enormous undertaking.