Along came a Dagger

Barely a day after the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport raised the intriguing prospect of a 300mph road car, US firm TranStar Racing has announced its intentions to build one. The TranStar Racing Dagger GT - gotta love our Atlantic cousins' flare for names - is due to be powered by a 9.4-litre twin-turbo V8 producing 2000bhp.

It's not the first time a start-up company has appeared with a new supercar design promising big numbers, and it's anyone's guess as to whether this one will get any further than the usual renderings. The idea of using a big Old School V8 is promisingly grounded, though, and 2000bhp is certainly not unrealistic for a drag racing engine.

With that sort of power on tap 300mph should, in theory, be attainable. What's somewhat more surprising is the company's suggestion that it will also meet US emissions requirements and provide 'reasonable gas mileage for a big block engine'. There's also the small matter of keeping it on the ground at 300mph, keeping the tyres intact, and, not least, funding the project.

If the Dagger ever does come to fruition its base price of $400,000 will comfortably undercut most of the existing hypercars, but cynics might argue this is rather academic until the first prototype actually turns a wheel. In the meantime what we do have is a collection of renderings and you'd have to say they look rather good. Let's hope we see it in the flesh one day.

Bugatti Veyron Super Sport hits 268mph

Remember when 200mph seemed an almost impassable barrier, reserved only for the fastest hypercars? Those days may be long gone, but even in the era of 200mph estate cars there’s something pretty special about Bugatti’s latest achievement.

Yesterday, at the Volkswagen Group’s Ehra-Lessien development facility a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport piloted by factory driver Pierre Henri Raphanel set an average speed of 431kph over two runs. That’s 268mph. In a road car.

More to the point, it was also a standard production road car – provided, that is, you can ever classify a 16-cylinder, 1200bhp, €1,950,000 Veyron as standard. Upgrades relative to the modest 1,001bhp base model include enlarged turbos and intercoolers, greater spring travel, revised dampers and a re-programmed 4-wheel drive system. All of which throws down the gauntlet to the likes of the Hennessey Venom GT (a 1,200bhp Anglo-American supercar said to be capable of ‘at least 262mph’). How long until the first 300mph production car? Place your bets now.