Hold onto
your butts: These are the 10 fastest cars in the world
Hennessey recorded a 270.4-mph run at the
Kennedy Space Center last
year, but only in one direction. To be considered legitimate, record attempts
usually require one run in each direction. An average is then taken to account
for wind conditions.
Because of
its hand-built nature, there’s also some debate about whether the Venom GT
qualifies as a production car. While it can claim the highest recorded speed,
Hennessey’s monster isn’t recognized as the world’s fastest car by the Guinness
Book of World Records.
When
Volkswagen purchased the Bugatti brand, it had one goal: build the fastest
production car in the world. The original Veyron achieved that goal, and with a
price tag of $1.7 million and a quad-turbocharged W16 engine producing 1,000
hp, it also boasted the most superlatives of any production car.
Yet the
Veyron was soon dethroned by the SSC Ultimate Aero, so Bugatti came back with
the Veyron Super Sport. This Veyron-plus has 1,200 hp, and numerous aerodynamic
changes meant to help gain a few extra miles per hour.
With a top
speed of 268 mph recorded at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessein test track, the Veyron
Super Sport is still recognized as the world’s fastest production car by Guinness. The related Veyron Grand Sport
Vitesse is also the world’s fastest open-topped car, with a top speed of 254 mph.
Briefly, the
might of the Volkswagen Group and the prestige of the Bugatti name were bested
by a car company no one had ever heard of.
Shelby
SuperCars (SSC) has nothing to do with Carroll Shelby of Cobra fame, but for a
moment its Ultimate Aero was the fastest production car in the world. It hit
256 mph in 2007, beating the non-Super Sport version of the Veyron.
Helping it
achieve that velocity is a 6.3-liter twin-turbocharged V8 with 1,287 hp. There
are no electronic driver aids to help control that power either, creating a
purer driving experience for those with talent, and a scenario for certain
death for those without it.
Swedish
supercar builder Koenigsegg briefly held the “world’s fastest” title before
being bested by the original Bugatti Veyron. Its CCR reached 242 mph at Italy’s
Nardo Ring in 2005.
The CCR was
essentially an earlier generation of the cars Koenigsegg is building today. It
featured a 4.7-liter V8 of the company’s own design, a carbon-fiber body, and
not much in the way of electronic aids.
Despite its
impressive stats, the CCR’s moment in the spotlight was as brief as its claim
on the world. It was soon supplanted by the CCX, and then by the current Agera.
Koenigsegg says the Agera-based One:1 will top out at over 270 mph, but no one
has tried it yet.
The F1 is
more than just a former world’s-fastest car. With its carbon-fiber body, gold-lined
engine bay, 6.1-liter BMW M V12, and center driver’s seat, it just might be the
coolest car ever made.
Years before
it attempted to take on Ferrari and Porsche with the MP4-12C, McLaren was known
only as a successful race team in Formula 1 and the defunct Can-Am series. Yet
its first road car wasn’t exactly an amateur effort.
McLaren
intended to make the F1 the ultimate road-going supercar, but its design was
informed by the company’s racing experience. The F1 even went on to a fairly
successful racing career in its own right, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995.
The One-77
is the most extreme road-going Aston ever, and the fastest. It may share a
front-engined layout with “regular” Astons, but the One-77 is a completely
different animal.
Only 77
examples were made, and each sports a 7.30-liter V12 producing 750 hp. Like the chassis, it’s based on
an engine used in lesser Aston production models, but it’s both lighter and
more ferocious.
Aside from
its performance and jaw-dropping good looks, the most remarkable thing about
the One-77 may be that Aston was able to create a hypercar without making many
compromises.
While it
matches race-inspired mid-engined designs for performance, the One-77 still has
the look and feel of something much more luxurious and well-rounded. It is,
after all, the only front-engined car on this list.
The One-77
proves that incredibly fast cars don’t have to focus solely on performance. Its
character is almost as special as its 220 mph top speed and limited production
run.
The XJ220
lost six cylinders and two driven wheels on the way to production, but it still
managed to claim the title of fastest production car in 1992.
The original
concept version featured a V12 engine and all-wheel drive, but the production
model had to make due with a twin-turbocharged V6, and rear-wheel drive. Still,
that was enough to get the XJ220 to 217 mph at Nardo, once engineers removed
the rev limiter.
However, it
wasn’t enough to solidify in the car’s place in history. Buyers weren’t as
impressed by the production version as they were with the concept, and a weak
early ‘90s economy tanked sales. Sometimes being the fastest just isn’t enough.
McLaren
P1 (217 mph)
McLaren’s
successor to the F1 isn’t as fast, but it’s much more high tech. Its 903-hp hybrid powertrain seamlessly blends electric and
turbocharged V8 power, making the P1 one of the most capable performance cars
ever made.
During the car’s press junket, McLaren said it emphasized the driving experience over outright top speed. Maybe the company didn’t think it could compete with Bugatti, or maybe it just thought organ-shredding lateral grip was a better way to torture customers than stratospheric speeds.
With a claimed lap time of around
six minutes,
the P1 also excels at a performance metric that’s almost become more important
than top speed: the Nürburgring.
Along withe
P1 and the Porsche 918 Spyder, the Ferrari LaFerrari is part of a
trio of hybrid supercars that showed the world that performance cars don’t have
to be (too) inefficient.
The Ferrari
matches the McLaren for top speed and cleverness. Its 6.3-liter V12 is joined
to a hybrid system modeled on the Kinetic Energy
Recovery Systems (KERS) used in Ferrari’s Formula One cars. Not only does the
LaFerrari give its driver 950 hp to play with, it also provides the instantaneous
response of electric motors to get things going.
That the
current LaFerrari isn’t any faster than the Enzo that appeared a decade before
it could be viewed as proof of lack of progress. Or maybe it’s just an
indication of how good the Enzo really was.
The Enzo
looks positively ancient next to the LaFerrari, but it was state of the
supercar art a decade ago. It was the first of Ferrari’s flagship hypercars to
incorporate Formula 1-style tech, and when it launched it was also the fastest
and most powerful production Ferrari to date.
Named after
Ferrari’s founder, the Enzo’s mechanicals and styling set the tone for a
generation of Ferrari road cars, and may also represent an important point in
supercar development.
With
relatively few electronic aids, the Enzo was tricky to drive. A string of crash
photos and Youtube videos attested to that. Subsequent Ferraris have included
more driver aids, making the Enzo among the last of the analog cars from
Maranello.
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