2011 SSC Tuatara

Tuatara is the second all-new supercar made by Jerod Shelby's Shelby SuperCars Inc. Its radical body by Jason Castriota is fully modern and has two flying winglets on the rear of the car for which the car derives its name.

Plans for the design might include a twin-turbocharged V8 that will produce 1350 bhp. With a curb weight of just 2600 pounds, the car should be capable of 275 mph. This is possible from extensive carbon fiber fabrication that pushes the cost of the car to nearly $1,000,000 USD.

Press Release

Shelby SuperCars (SSC), the American supercar manufacturer and creator of the world record breaking Ultimate Aero, is proud to introduce its latest contribution to automobile enthusiasts worldwide. Following several years of design and development of its revolutionary new supercar, SSC has named its new car TUATARA (pronounced twu‐tar‐ah).
“The design specifications for the Next Generation SSC were so extreme; we knew early on that a proper name would be a key piece of the puzzle for this project,” says Jerod Shelby, Founder, Lead Designer and CEO of SSC.
The name “Tuatara” was inspired by a modern day New Zealand reptile that bears the same name. A direct descendent of the dinosaur, this reptile’s name translated from the Maori language means “peaks on the back,” which is quite fitting, given the winglets on the back of the new car. While the Tuatara is a very unique creature, there was a particular property of this reptile that immediately married it with SSC. The Tuatara possesses the fastest evolving DNA in the world, and amongst the world’s greatest supercar manufacturers, so does SSC.
Mr. Shelby explains, “Most manufacturers essentially use the same basic model and body shape for up to 10 years, while only making small refinements to it each year. After only three years in production with the Ultimate Aero, SSC’s Tuatara is about to monumentally evolve in the areas of sophistication, design, aerodynamics and shear all‐around performance. We felt that the fastest evolving DNA was a perfect definition of SSC’s latest project.”