What Was The Top Speed Of The Thrust SSC? The Fastest Land Vehicle Ever

When we talk about speed, the usual names that pop up in the mind are Koenigsegg, Pagani, and Bugatti, often in the same vein as words like twin-turbo V8, carbon fiber chassis, and next-gen aerodynamics. But the current world record is held by a rather special machine, and it has remained intact for over two decades. The "car" in question is the Thrust SSC, and it managed to achieve that record thanks to a couple of Rolls-Royce Spey 202 jet engines.

The top speed achieved by the SSC Thrust, as recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records and the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, was 763.035 miles per hour, or 1,227.985 kilometers per hour. That figure is currently the Outright World Land Speed Record and also claimed to be the first supersonic speed record as it breached the sound barrier and clocked in at Mach 1.016 speeds.

On October 15, 1997, the Thrust SSC broke the sound barrier, nearly half a century after Captain "Chuck" Yeager scripted history with the first supersonic flight. Just to be clear here, FIA's definition of Absolute World Records only takes into account the distance and time figures and is not concerned with the tiers like category, group, or class of a vehicle. Just for the sake of comparison, the current world record of peak speed held by a "regular" car is held by the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut, which only grazes slightly past the 310 miles per hour figure. 

The Thrust SSC, quite literally, inherited the DNA of breakneck airborne vehicles. At the heart of the car was Rolls Royce's Spey (R.B.163 Spey 505-5) engine, which has appeared inside a variety of military vehicles across the Phantom, Buccaneer, and Nimrod lines, alongside civil vehicles such as the Grumman Gulfstream. Behind the wheels of this one-of-a-kind machine was British Royal Air Force fighter pilot Andy Green.

 "The outright world land speed record is so iconic because it's the simplest, oldest, purest form of motorsport," he said after setting a new world record that stands to this day. The Thrust SSC is now on display at the UK's Coventry Transport Museum in Coventry, alongside its predecessor, the Thrust 2. A collaborative design effort courtesy of Richard Noble, Jeremy Bliss, Ron Ayres, and Glynne Bowsher, the Thrust 2 looks more like a fighter jet than a land vehicle. 

The dimensions, too, are far from what an average car commands, coming in at 16.5 meters (54 feet) long and 3.7 meters (12 feet) wide. The weight of the behemoth ride was a staggering 10.5 tons or 23,148 pounds. For comparison, the ZIL-41047 limousine — which currently holds the Guinness world record as the heaviest car in the world — tipped the scales at roughly 11,398 pounds. Notably, a successor called Bloodhound LSR, powered by a rocket engine, is already in development to go past the Thrust SSC's world record.