Fastest race car....
Let's start by the
fastest street legal car: McLaren F1. No ABS, no power steering, not even power brakes (all these to make it light), composite body, 627 hp, 1290 kg,
fan-assisted diffuser.
240 mph
Fastest car with an engine you could actually buy at your car store:
Nish Motorsports Streamliner small block Chevy engine.
345 mph. They are going to try again in August with a
blown fuel engine, which I recommend for your efforts.
Fastest car on pistons (FIA engine world record holder, Group 1):
Spirit of 76.
410 mph
Last piston car to hold the land speed record:
Railton Special. Tires with threads of 0.5 mm wide (it is not a typo, the width of the lead of a pencil), 180 kg aluminium body, 3.200 kg total weight, 47.000 cc (yes, forty seven thousand), 2500 hp engine.
394 mph, 1947.
Fastest car in the world: Thrust SSC. 35.000 G's resistant wheels, no ground effect (hahahahahaha! ground effect... good one!), absolutely minimium frontal area achieved by burying the frontal wheels under the engine cover and having the steering mechanism on rear wheels, active suspension to control attitude (just one degree of nose tipping and the car would have flown), 110.000 hp total thrust engines.
763.035 mph - 1227.99 km/h
Question raised to a member of Thrust SSC team: "Now that you've gone faster than the speed of sound, what are you going to do next?"
Answer: "Well, there's always the speed of light."
First time in history a shockwave formed around a car:
Sources for your design:
Mickey Thompson Tires: only provider of tires rated in excess of 375 mph. Biggest problem: do not shred the tires. They rotate pretty fast!
Strasburg Racing: "Specializing in speeds over 200 mph"
Stroud Safety: safety equipment for land speed record racing
2715 South Agnew
Oklahoma City, OK 73108 (I guess you are going to need them...
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