There's a new standing-mile top speed record on the books, thanks to this modified 2006 Ford GT. The car and its tuners, M2K Motorsports, eclipsed 300 mph.
Specifically, the GT went 300.4 mph in the standing mile after it blew past 174.5 mph in the quarter mile and 240 mph at the half-mile point. Critically, this car is still street legal, which makes the record far more impressive. However, it's not a stock vehicle, which leaves that title open for a number of other manufacturers to take.
Notably, Koenigsegg, Hennessey Performance Engineering, and SSC are eager to be first to 300 mph with a factory supercar.
According to M2K Motorsports, the modified Ford GT makes 2,500 horsepower at the crank and 2,000 of those ponies make their way to the wheels. The modifications done to the original 5.4-liter supercharged V-8 are unknown, but the video is proof that this car rips—hard.
We have to imagine the GT would go even faster on a longer stretch of road. We're also incredibly curious how M2K prepped the car for the top speed run, specifically, how the tires handled the forces at such speeds. Bugatti previously said the Chiron supercar won't go any faster than its limited speed of 261 mph because of tire limitations. Michelin announced last year it's working on tires to handle 300-mph speeds.
There's a lot of work and engineering that will go into the first tires that handle repeated runs approaching, or even exceeding, 300 mph. Surely, a manufacturer can create tires that handle the speeds once, but being able to repeat the effort is key. They also need to hold up in regular driving situations as well.
For now, we're sure M2K is celebrating its record. Soon, we hope to see one of the many companies gunning for 300 mph in a factory supercar take off.