A hot potato: SSC North America is back in the news this week, and is putting a stamp on its controversial world record attempt back in October 2020. We still don't have all of the answers as to what exactly went wrong, but at least we know for certain that the 300 MPH barrier was not broken on that day.

American hypercar company SSC North America found itself at the center of controversy in late 2020 after releasing a video depicting its flagship vehicle, the Tuatara, smashing the world record for the fastest production car with an average speed of 316.11 MPH (the average of two runs, one hitting 301.07 MPH and the other reaching 331.15 MPH).

Inconsistencies in the video led to questions, and that resulted in SSC North America admitting that there was an error on the editing side related to the video. The company vowed to redo the run, and made good on that promise a few months later.

Unfortunately, the second outing was marred by mechanical issues and they ultimately only hit 251.2 MPH on their final run before two spark plugs bit the bullet.

The story continues this week as SSC North America in a recent post on Instagram attempted to clear the air. "If it hasn't been made clear up to this point, we would like to acknowledge officially that we did not reach the originally claimed speeds of 331 MPH or even 301 MPH in October of 2020," the post read.

The team said they were heartbroken to learn that they didn't achieve their goal, but added that they are still aiming to break the 300 MPH barrier "transparently, officially and undoubtedly."