The world's fastest street-legal car

The SSC, although surprisingly smooth and comfortable over rougher surfaces, does not pretend to be anything other than an involved driver's car. And it is. There is no power steering, which makes for a killer workout when navigating the car at low speeds, but at the same time makes for a more connected and authentic road feel while traveling at speed and during handling maneuvers.

Regarding Shelby's decision to do without traction control for the Ultimate Aero, it was a move he saw as consistent with pure sports cars that are not interfered with by the electronic nannies seen in many of today's modern cars. There is also a traditional manual gearshift lever to your right, which, in my opinion, makes for a more rewarding and engaging experience in a car of this performance caliber.

You don't need to be Mario Andretti to pilot the Ultimate Aero, but chatting on the cell phone and sipping a latte while behind the wheel is probably a bad idea. And although extremely well-balanced — fuel is stored up front as to counter the mid/rear weight bias from the engine — the Ultimate Aero demands your respect and attention if you would like to remain vertical or out of traction. "We celebrate the Ultimate Aero's unique differences because we did not create this car for everybody. The Veyron is an amazing car, but the Bugatti driver and the SSC driver are two very different people," says Khan.

Flick a switch on the Ultimate Aero's instrument panel, hold down the ceiling mounted starter button, and what can only be described as a lion's roar emanates from all that American muscle resting behind your head. Standing outside of the car at idle, the ceramic exhaust pipes emit a pleasing grumble alluding to the symphony of power that awaits your right foot.

Inside the car, on the road
Probably the first thing I noticed after takeoff was all the amusing noises reverberating in the cabin. They're a mix of high-tech happenings and muscular emissions. The twin turbos cradling the engine, for instance, make an awesome pinging sound as the wastegates switch on and off between them. Shelby lovingly refers to them as "the twins." The turbo pinging, along with a ferocious exhaust note, becomes more aggressive as you tear through each of the six forward gears. With a quick flick of the wrist, the Ultimate Aero's transmission precisely clicks into each gear gate as you rapidly climb to triple-digit speeds.

How rapid? How about reaching 60 mph in 2.78 seconds in first gear. Like a well-funded brewery, the SSC's power is always on tap. And thanks to massive 14-in. vented and slotted disc brakes up front (eight-piston calipers) and in back (six-piston calipers), the Aero only needs 103 feet to get back down to zero.

The interior is just as well thought out. "You hear feedback about other cars, like the shifter is too far away or the steering wheel is too close," says Shelby. "So we did a lengthy study about different sized bodies and how they fit into cars. We talked to a lot of owners. We would look at a 55 percentile female and a 95 percentile male, and there is a huge swing in arm/leg length, eye level, etc. We came up with an interior that is suitable for men and women of every size."

The specially made Recaro seats are super-snug and effectively keep your body in place while ripping through corners. This is necessary considering the Ultimate Aero literally handles like it's on rails. Like a high-end camera, just point and shoot where you want to go.

A hand-built record-breaker
SSC is already well on its way to reaching the 50-car production run planned for the Ultimate Aero. The 2007 order bank, which opened more than halfway into 2007, has been put to bed with five cars sold and delivered internationally. And 2008 has already seen eight orders with six-figure down payments to match. Next on the company agenda is a four-door, four-seat, luxury sports sedan aiming at near or above 220 mph.

When you consider SSC's daunting challenges and its David vs. Goliath situation, it is all the more impressive that they came out on top. And like the founders of many startups, Shelby has been intimately involved in the design and development of his baby. In fact, workers in SSC's assembly plant have become quite used to Shelby turning wrenches alongside them during the 3.5 months it takes to hand-build each Ultimate Aero. "I know the part-number and price of every part on this car, which you will never see at a larger company," says Shelby.

With 1,183 hp and 1,094 foot-pounds of torque, the Ultimate Aero's all-aluminum, twin-turbocharged V8 has more horsepower than any other street-legal production car, another record for which the company is applying.

But wait, there's more.

The car also holds the best-recorded speed for navigating the slalom (73.1 mph), and bests all others in the ever-important weight-to-horsepower ratio (2.33). "A lot of people think that powerful, American supercars are only good at going straight, but our car will out-handle just about anything that you put next to it," Shelby says. "When Road & Track tested a pre-production version of our car, it broke the Ferrari Enzo's slalom course record. It will just take time to get the word out on how capable we are."

MORE FROM BUSINESSWEEK

BusinessWeek Section Front

What Will the Crisis Mean for Venture Capital? Movers: MetLife, IBM, National City, TJX Companies Where the Credit Freeze Has Thawed Movers: Alcoa, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Wal-Mart McCain's Mortgage Bailout Plan Why Clean Tech Is Taking Biotech's Shine Movers: Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland, AMD College Costs: Coping with the Meltdown 3D Imaging Spreads to Fashion and Beyond House Reverses Field, Votes 'Yes' on Bailout BusinessWeek Section Front