RICHLAND, Wash. —
First Tuatara built for a customer comes to life inside Richland facility
10 years of development, design, and changes have led to the creation of the Tuatara, which was created in the Tri-Cities.
The first customer car was delivered to its first buyer in February. It wasn’t an easy road to this point. It took SSC North America several trial and errors, testing and more.
“Staring at this car on the computer screens for the last 10 years, whether it was sub-assemblies of it or the completed model — it is so rewarding to me now, just in the last six months, to get to see it rolling around in final form,” said CEO and founder, Jerod Shelby. “It was quite a journey.”
Back in 2010, SSC North America designed a dream facility. It didn’t work out, but Shelby knew he had to keep going with his idea of the Tuatara.
“Last year we were at the stage where we were ready to go into production of these vehicles,” he said. “We needed a facilities and we wanted to keep this right here in the Tri-Cities and in Richland.”
In June 2019, they moved into a Richland facility and hit the ground running.
“The completion of the first assembled customer car was completed in September 2019,” Shelby said. “Just a really exciting time to finally get to see it all assembled in front of you where you can walk around it and see the detail and it’s very rewarding.”
They unveiled the Tuatara at a Philadelphia Auto Show in February 2020. Everything viewers saw came right out of a Richland building.
“This will house not only our ongoing R and D, but the full production line and the completed process, or the complete process can be done under one roof now,” he said. “To the assembly to the fit and finish work to the upholstery to the paintwork, right down to the alignment and the final testing of the chassis dyno testing.”
The facility has a state-of-the-art paint booth and prep station — the finishing touches on the Tuatara. With the facility, the possibilities and number of cars they can build have grown.
“It’s going to be full, but it’s an amazing opportunity for us and it allows us to achieve that dream of delivering those customer cars,” Shelby explained. “It’s always been important to me with what I’ve been through in the last 20 years trying to build this company – I didn’t care what it took. I wanted to make sure and keep it here locally.”
As for the first Tuatara — it’s based on the test car SSC North America created three years ago.
“There’s just been an immense amount of refinements that went into the production car,”