New car news

12 May 2008 - 10:00

Damn! Only 254mph

Close, but no cigar. 9ff has fallen short in its attempt to break the record for the world's fastest production car - two miles per hour short, in fact.

9ff's GT9 hit 254mph on the Papenburg Oval in Germany, agonisingly close to the 256mph recorded by the SSC Ultimate Aero TT in Washington last year.

The GT9 is a (heavily) modified Porsche GT3 built by former RUF engineer Jan Fatthauer. Heavily modified as in only sharing two per cent of the components.

Longer and lower than a regular GT3, it's powered by a mid-mounted (no rear-engineness here) four-litre, twin-turbo flat-six producing some 987bhp and 711lb ft of torque.

Which means it's quick. Quick enough to hit 186mph in 17.6 seconds and top out at a Veyron-beating 254mph. Fatthauer plans to build 20 GT9s at a cost of £350,000 each, which makes it a veritable bargain alongside the £800,000+ Veyron.

It's not clear yet whether 9ff will have another shot at the production car record, but we'd be surprised if it didn't have one more go at squeezing a couple more mph out of the GT9. A lighter driver, maybe?