fastest production car

PPX: FASTEST Pays Out

The PPX stock FASTEST was halted and delisted today after the Ultimate Aero TT, produced by Shelby Supercars, posted an average top speed of 411.76 km/h during speed tests in the Nevada Desert, breaking the Guinness record for worlds fastest production car, and thus unseating the Bugatti Veyron from the record-holding position. The Ultimate Aero is powered by a 6.3-liter twin-turbo V8 engine that produces 882 kW of energy at 6,950 RPMs.

This proposition was trading at just POP$49.75 per share when the record was broken, paying out at POP$100 per share. —Megan Miller

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The Future Then: Auto Edition

PopSci has been looking toward the near and distant future of the car for over 135 years. To coincide with car month here, see how some of our past predictions have survived the test of time.

Since PopSci's inception, we've had a special place in our heart for cars. Cars that fly and cars that swim. Cars that glide along on three wheels, or one, or none. Rocket autos, sleeper buses, monster trucks-we've covered them all (and, on occasion, more than once).Launch our blast-from-the-past gallery to see our conception of the future as we saw it way back when, as well as the future as we view it now. Have we guessed right? You be the judge.

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TGV Sets High-Speed Train Record: Extrêmement Spectaculaire!


To anyone who might still doubt the raw power of electric vehicles, consider this: A French bullet train—which draws its power from overhead lines—set a world speed record for conventional rail trains yesterday, hitting 357.2 miles an hour with two locomotives and three passenger cars. It used a 25,000-horsepower engine and specially modified wheels to accomplish the feat.

Let’s think about that for a moment. It’s 100 mph faster than the Bugatti Veyron, the fastest production car in the world. At 357.2 mph, you cover six miles each minute, a tenth of a mile each second. The effect on spectators was thunderous (check out the video above at the 3-minute mark as the train whooshes under an overpass at the moment the record falls, much to the delight of the French TV newscaster live on the scene). I can’t imagine what would have happened if, say, a cow had wandered onto the track; it probably would have just been vaporized. If anything had happened to the train itself, it would have been curtains for everyone—and one of the most terrible, protracted crashes in history.

By the way, it’s still not the fastest train on Earth. A Japanese maglev (magnetically levitated) train hit 361 mph in 2003. —Eric Adams

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