SSC Ultimate Aero II (2011) – First Photos

The SSC Ultimate Aero II (pics thanks to Jalopnik)

The car world may have been in melt down for the last year or three, but some things are beyond recession. Ultimate hypercars is one, and it seems there are as many uber-wealthy people on the planet who are willing and able to indulge their desires for the best there can be as ever.

Of course, we’re talking minuscule numbers of people to make the whole hypercar circus work. Possibly as few as 1,000 in the world; even less depending on your definition of a hypercar. Bugatti, for example, has only produced 300 Veyrons over the last five years; Pagani little more than a quarter of that number of cars and Koenigsegg even less. Yet the companies survive and appear to prosper on customer numbers that would see a village shop go bust.

Which tells you that done right hypercar production can be a profitable enterprise. And being the ‘Best’ hypercar will guarantee you sales from those wealthy individuals who want the ultimate. And one measure of ‘Ultimate’ is the highest top speed.

Top speed for a production car fell to the McLaren F1 for years, but Bugatti took that crown with the Veyron. SSC stole that away with the first Ultimate Aero but Bugatti has just reclaimed the fastest production car in the world mantle with the Veyron Super Sport. And now it’s time for SSC to respond.

Last month SSC teased the next Ultimate Aero. Now we have the first photos. We still don’t know what SSC has done to the existing 256 mph,1,183-hp 6.2-liter V8 to make it deliver another 13mph to break the Veyron, but now we know what it looks like.

So when  are SSC going to roll out the Ultimate Aero II? Probably not until mid 2011 at the earliest, despite the full-sized mock-up you see in the photo above.

This story will keep dripping.

By Cars UK