Image via Complex Original
"Supercar" is one of those nebulously defined terms that is still, somehow, perfectly clear. We all know that a supercar is a car that is simply superlative in terms of performance. It's fast as hell, cooler than that famous Outkast line, handles like a race car, has at most two doors, and causes massive amounts of rubbernecking.
These days it seems like we hear of a new supercar company every 13 minutes that promises a 9,000-horsepower, 89-pound car that will outrace F1 cars, take the mantle of "world's fastest production car," and solve world hunger. While we continue to hold our breath for that car to actually see the light of day, we'd like you to celebrate the most extreme and amazing vehicles that have actually made it out into the wild. These are The 50 Best Supercars of All Time.
RELATED: The Quickest Production Cars in Each of the Past 25 Years
RELATED: What Makes a Supercar a Supercar?
50. Ascari A10
Year: 2006-Present
In a time when fewer and fewer supercars are coming with a manual transmission as an option, we love that the Ascari A10 can still be had with one, especially as it isn't just a road car, it's a road-worthy evolution of the KZ1-R GT race car that was designed by ex-F1 designer, Paul Brown.
49. Noble M600
Year: 2010-Present
Since the company's introduction in 1999, Noble has released a total of six cars. All of them were highly entertaining, but the M600 is the first one to live up to the supercar label. The M600 might not have the same brand recognition as its Italian competitors, but its 650bhp Yamaha twin-turbo V8 and 225 estimated top speed certainly can keep pace with them.
48. TVR Sagaris
Year: 2005-2006
Peter Wheeler believes that ABS and airbags promote over-confidence in driving; that's why the TVR Sagaris doesn't have either of those things. It does have a 420hp, 4.0-liter inline-6, however. Its intense, raw power is likely to be more car than the owner can handle, and we love it for that.
47. Saleen S7 Twin Turbo
Year: 2005-2009
If given all the powers of the Abrahamic God, Jim Carrey would bestow upon himself a Saleen S7 (as we learned from Bruce Almighty). Steve Saleen has only ever made one car that wasn't a tuned version of an already existing car, and that was the S7. The S7 Twin Turbo was the even more powerful version, so of course, that's the model that makes our list. Its 750 horsepower rocketed the S7 to 60 mph in less than three seconds.
46. Lotus Essex Turbo Esprit
Year: 1980
The one problem with the Lotus Esprit was a lack of power. The steering was brilliant, the sub-1,000kg (2,205lb) weight was brilliant, and the handling was brilliant; the engine, however, was not. When Lotus first fitted the Esprit with a turbocharger in 1980, those perceptions were tossed into the 153mph top speed wind and 0-60 time of 5.4 seconds.
45. Spyker C8
Year: 2000-Present
The Spyker C8 has always been a different sort of supercar. First of all, it's Dutch, which is very unusual. Second, it has always been very aesthetically distinctive. Most supercars follow a predictable design pattern of slathering some creases on a cab-forward design and adding a few pointy bits. Spyker chose to keep it fairly simple with a more rounded approach, including those unmistakeable circular air intakes. The effect is fantastic.
44. Lancia Stratos
Year: 1972-1974
The Stratos is one of the most dramatic cars to ever hit the road. The shape is unapologetically angular and wedge shaped, manically fast, and absolutely legendary in rally history.
43. BMW M1
Year: 1978-1981
We love BMW's M division, and this is the beautiful mid-engined exotic that started it all. The only think we don't like about it is that there has never been a successor to this German exotic and its buttery smooth inline-six engine.
42. Dodge Viper
Year: 1996-2002
The second-generation Viper had a lot of things that the first gen model didn't, like door handles, a roof, and windows. It still featured all of the things that made it super, like good handling, light weight, Shelby Daytona Coupe-derived styling, and the deft touch of Carroll Shelby himself but added those things to make it a fully functional car.
Granted, it still tried to cause physical harm to its drivers when left unsupervised by virtue of poor heat insulation, insanely hot side skirts, and a propensity for sudden bouts of oversteer. Call us crazy, but the 490 lb-ft of torque and 420 horsepower from its hearty American 8.0-liter V10 charmed us into forgetting about that.
41. Lamborghini Sesto Elemento
Year: 2012
Carbon Fiber is nothing short of amazing as a building material for cars. Lamborghini constructed a limited edition V10-powered supercar that weighed only 2,200 lbs by making absolutely everything out of the space age material. That gives it a ridiculous 3.85 pound-to-horsepower ratio. Although it's not street-legal, we still love it as the perfectly honed track tool that it is.
40. Lamborghini Countach
Year: 1974-1990
This is the heart and soul of the whole group of wedge-shaped sports cars, and scissor doors, and the cabin-forward design of modern mid-engined exotics. Yet, our favorite part is the name: It's a Piedmontese exclamation of astonishment that men use upon seeing a beautiful woman. What does your favorite supercar's name mean?
39. Ferrari 365 "Daytona" GTB/4
Year: 1971-1973
The Ferrari 365 "Daytona" GTB/4 was a masterpiece. It was sleek, fast, nimble, and eventually lived up to its moniker by placing 2nd at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1979.
38. Porsche Carrera GT
Year: 2004-2007
A large number of people have difficulty deciphering which Porsches are which. The 911's design has changed so slowly, and had so many different permutations in each design, that the subtleties of Porsches are totally lost upon the masses. The Carrera GT didn't just set itself apart from its stablemates visually, though. It managed to, by virtue of its Le Mans-bred architecture, set itself apart dynamically as well.
37. Auburn "Boattail" Speedster
Year: 1928-1936
Not only were the boattail Auburns some of the most beautiful cars to have ever been made, but they were some of the fastest, as well. At a time when Cadillac was competing directly with Rolls-Royce and its most powerful engine managed 90 horses, the Auburn put out 115 and topped 100mph. In fact, Auburn's test drivers took each speedster out onto the highways around Auburn, IN and made sure of it. For a while police tried to give them tickets but were incapable of catching them and eventually gave up.
36. Lamborghini Aventador
Year: 2011-Present
Controlling 700 horsepower by a push-rod suspension not unlike those from F1 is a very good thing. The fact that the designers in Sant'Agata Bolognese managed to make Lamborghini's existing "stealth fighter" design language even more angular, even sharper, and even more dramatically harsh is just icing on the carbon fiber cake.
35. Nissan GT-R
Year: 2007-Present
It's amazing, on one hand, that a Nissan can cost this much, and on the other hand, that a car this advanced and this fast can cost this little. Even though the price of the GT-R has been steadily rising ever since the car's introduction, it still represents a terrific value for what is one of the world's fastest production cars. Try finding 545 horsepower on a standard production car for this cheap elsewhere.
34. Pagani Huayra
Year: 2011-Present
We'll be honest. If it were at all possible to pronounce "Huayra," and the front end didn't look like a demonic catfish, this car would probably be a bit higher up on this list. Its AMG-sourced 6.0-liter bi-turbo V12 engine is technologically superior to the already amazing Zonda in every way, but is it really worth the estimated $1.3 million price tag?
33. Koenigsegg Agera R
Year: 2011-Present
Although it has not been verified, Koenigsegg engineers have state that this car can do an amazing 272.8 mph when fitted with special tires. The Agera R also holds a number of landspeed records for production cars, including the fastest 0-300kph acceleration (14.53 seconds). All of this is made possible by a perfectly designed body, extremely low weight, and a 1,100hp twin-turbo V8.
32. Ferrari Testarossa
Year: 1984-1996
You know a design is good when it's from the mid-80s and it still looks brilliant. Not only was it one of the stars of Miami Vice but it also was featured on the cover of Road & Track an unprecedented nine times in five years. Its rack-and-pinion steering, and independent, unequal-length suspension handled its 390hp flat-V12 exceptionally well, too.
31. Lamborghini Gallardo
Year: 2004-2014
For much of its life, the Lamborghini Gallardo seemed to be the car that was never in first, but always the runner up, but now, in retrospect, we see something different. The Gallardo is the car that saved Lamborghini from its struggles and the supercar that embraced the tuning and customization scene like no other before it. It may not have always quite kept up with the equivalent Ferrari, but we think it was more significant in the long run than its competition.
30. Lamborghini Veneno
Year: 2013
Mechanically, the Veneno is pretty much just an Aventador, but it's something entirely different from a design point of view. The Veneno, to us, represents that fact that Lamborghini doesn't give a single crap about convention or sanity, and is just out to make awesome cars. We like that.
29. SSC Ultimate Aero XT
Year: 2013
Bugatti spent $400 million and six years developing the Veyron, while drawing technology and engineers from all of the Volkswagen Auto Group's myriad marques. Despite all of that, the Veyron still lost the throne of "world's fastest production car" to a small American company when the incredible SSC Ultimate Aero XT was unveiled. This puppy's pumping out a blistering 1,300 horsepower from its 6.8-liter, twin-turbo DOHC V8. 'Murica!
28. BAC Mono
Year: 2012-Present
The BAC Mono was designed to be a F1 car for the road, and engineers from companies like Cosworth and Hewland collaborated on the project in order to make it so. The Mono seats only one, weighs virtually nothing, and is powered by one of our favorite engines of all time: the Cosworth-tuned 2.3-liter Duratec that puts out an impressive 285 horsepower.
27. Lamborghini Diablo
Year: 1990-2001
Lamborghini needed a great car to succeed the Countach, and the Diablo was just that and more. The Diablo was the first Lambo to break the 200mph barrier. It wasn't just a faster Countach, though. It also differentiated itself by making the cabin a reasonable place to spend a bit of time. That said, it surely hadn't lost any of the sheer brutality of its predecessor.
26. Gumpert Apollo Sport
Year: 2005-Present
The Gumpert Apollo Sport was designed as the road-legal successor to a race car. If that isn't enough credential for you, know that it is the fifth fastest car to have gone around the Top Gear test track. Aerodynamically, it's so well-optimized that, if it were going 190mph or higher, it could drive on the roof of a tunnel.
25. Lexus LFA
Year: 2010-2012
Today, Lexus makes a few different cool and sporty cars, but before the LFA Lexus was just a bunch of fancy Toyotas for rich people. The LFA, with its incredible attention to detail and screaming V10 certainly will go down in history as the turning point for all of that. Jeremy Clarkson crowned this as his favorite car of all time, and we think that means something coming from a very picky man who has driven damn near everything.
24. Pagani Zonda
Year: 1999-2011
When Pagani started out, it looked like another one of those tiny companies that promises an amazing car just before folding like a square piece of paper at a Japanese wedding. From Pagani, however, we got more than a handful of press releases; we got the Zonda. It was partially engineered by F1 champion Juan Manuel Fangio, powered by one of the greatest engines ever made (the AMG M120 V12), made almost entirely of carbon fiber, and was endlessly customizable, as one can tell by the many special editions.
23. Mercedes-Benz 300SL "Gullwing"
Year: 1954-1963
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL is a masterpiece in every way. It was a race winner, the world's fastest production car, and one of the most beautiful machines ever made. Even the gullwing doors—the first in the world, no less—weren't designed for the sake of being flashy; they were designed to work around chassis reinforcement that was added to the lower areas by the engineers. Only ze Germans would come up with something this ostentatious for purely practical reasons.
22. Enzo Ferrari
Year: 2002-2004
The Enzo Ferrari was designed to be a tribute to the company's late founder, and as such, it had to be brilliant. The Maranello-based automaker thrived under this pressure and went on to build one of the most beloved and sought-after supercars of all time (only 400 were built). Now, if only the ham-fisted owners of these 660hp V12s would stop crashing them into the ocean and gigantic trees.
21. Ariel Atom 500
Year: 2008-Present
The 300hp Atom nearly tore Jeremy Clarkson's face off in one meme-worthy episode of Top Gear. The Ariel Atom 500 replaces that 300hp four-cylinder with a 500hp V8. It's the fastest car to ever go around Top Gear's test track and the way it navigates a corner looks suspiciously similar to a F1 car.
20. Ferrari 458 Speciale
Year: 2014-Present
The 458 didn't really need to be faster or more precise, but Ferrari felt like it was time for an update, especially in light of how the McLaren MP4-12C evolved into the 650S. The result is spectacular. It's a "razor sharp," "lightning fast," car that is so impressive that auto writers instinctually resort to lazy clichés like "razor sharp" and "lightning fast."
We love that in the age of turbocharging, there's still room for a high-revving, naturally aspirated V8. There's no type of engine more fun to work out.
19. Shelby Cobra SuperSnake
Year: 1966
Carroll Shelby only built two SuperSnakes. He kept one for himself and gave the other to Bill Cosby, who was so frightened by the thing that he gave it back. The next owner of that particular car crashed it off a cliff, as it was too much to handle. It's the most insane version of the brilliant Shelby Cobra ever made, and it required a professional driver.
18. McLaren MP4-12C/650S
Year: 2011-2014
Some critics have complained that the McLaren MP4-12C is too clinical and doesn't have the fun factor of its main competition from Ferrari. We disagree. The Macca's design, while dictated entirely by science, is simple, beautiful, and pure, and the amount of technology available in this car is nothing short of astounding. This could have easily been priced $100,000 higher.
The MP4-12C may have been now been discontinued, but in reality it just evolved, via yearly updates, into the even more capable 650S.
17. Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series
Year: 2013
What a car. We've driven a lot of cars, including a few truly hardcore machines like a Formula 2000 open-wheel race car, and this is the only one we've driven that really felt like nothing more than a roadable race car. It's incredibly precise, but it requires equally precise input. There's not too much electronic babying of the driver in the SLS Black, and the result is a transcendent experience.
16. Porsche 918 Spyder
Year: 2013
We think that Porsche has not only made an incredible car, but also an amazing and classic design. Sometimes Porsches can look a little boring, just by virtue of the fact that the company hasn't undergone a major design revolution since 1931 when a dude named Porsche founded a company. Despite that, the 918 Spyder took the usual Porsche design elements and tweaked them into an engaging design that we're sure will look just as hot in decades to come.
It also doesn't hurt that this thing is faster than the Flash.
15. Ferrari 288 GTO
Year: 1984-1985
It's sad that such a brilliant car never got to fulfill its destiny. The 288 GTO was created to compete in Group B, one of the most amazing and insane racing series of all time, but never got to due to the series being dissolved after the deaths of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto. What was to be a great race car ended up just being one of the best road cars ever made. It was the first road-legal car to hit 300kmh (186 mph).
14. Ferrari F40
Years: 1987-1992
Dario Franchitti, the winner of four IndyCar championships and three Indy 500s, cited the Ferrari F40 as his favorite driver's car. The F40 is fast, precise, and without a doubt, a head-turner. Even though it was never intended to be raced, a number of private teams took the car to great success at events like the 1989 IMSA Laguna Seca race and the 6 Hours of Vallelunga.
13. Acura NSX
Year: 1990-2005
Any car that could keep selling for 15 years without a major reboot had something going for it. The NSX had a lot going for it. It could keep pace with the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of its day while costing much less and offering something the Italians had never really thought of before: reliability. When you get in your NSX, you can trust that it will start. The chassis was developed with Ayrton Senna's input, which certainly makes it one of the most nimble and engaging cars ever to put rubber to road.
12. Maserati MC12
Year: 2004-2005
The Ferrari Enzo is cool, but the Enzo-based Maserati MC12 (they share a chassis, windscreen, and the 6.0 litre V-12) is even cooler. Design wise, it's a much more sleek and timelessly beautiful machine, and it's homologated for GT racing, which gives it instant cred. It has a slightly slower top speed—205 to the Enzo's 217.5—but that probably won't matter.
11. Ferrari P4/5
Year: 2006
Former director and investment professional James Glickenhaus is clearly the front-runner for the title of "petrolhead of the century" for one reason and one reason alone: He commissioned the amazing Ferrari P4/5. It's a faster, more refined, and infinitely more sexy version of an Enzo and easily one of the coolest vehicles ever made. More still, this isn't just some rich guy's showpiece. Glickenhaus races the thing.
10. LaFerrari
Year: 2013-2014
"Hybrid" used to be such a dirty word. It conjured images of self-righteous left-lane hogs in droopy hatchbacks, but we think that the LaFerrari might do a lot to dispel that stereotype. Ferrari made a hybrid, and it's a brutal and striking machine (as well as the first Ferrari not to have its bodywork designed by Pininfarina since 1973) that uses what used to be eco tech to fill in the gaps in the massive V12's power delivery. Sheer brilliance.
9. Ford GT
Year: 2003-2006
We've waxed as eloquently as we can on numerous occasions about the Ford GT. We love the history of the Ferrari-beating GT40 upon which it is based, we love the fact that the original 1964 design doesn't look even the least bit dated today. Better still is the way the GT drives. Considering it was tuned by Carroll Shelby, this infatuation should come at no surprise. We'd have put the OG GT40 here if it were a supercar for the road, rather than "just" a race car.
8. Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale
Year: 1967-1969
The 33 Stradale is, without a doubt, one of the sexiest hunks of metal to have ever come out of Italy, a country known well for sexy hunks of metal. It was powered by a mid-mounted 2.0 liter V8 that was taken from Alfa's racing division and rode on a chassis and suspension that, while technically a road car, was more like a race car than anything else. Only 18 were ever produced, and in 1968 it was the most expensive production car in the world.
7. Jaguar XJ220
Year: 1992-1994
Jaguar is known less for race-spec supercars than it is for elegant grand tourers and sedans, but the one time that Jag did go down the mid-engined path, it was a massive success. The XJ220 set world records, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and was the first road car to build down-force by exploiting under-body air-flow. It was also capable of wringing a 213mph top speed out of its 3.5 liter twin-turbo V6. We would love for Jaguar to attempt something like this again.
6. Bugatti Veyron SuperSport
Year: 2010-Present
Bugatti had already wowed the world by making the lunatic's vision of a car that was the Veyron, but in the multi-billion dollar international pissing contest that is the title of "world's fastest production car," the original Veyron had been outdone by the SCC Ultimate Aero TT. This is why a car with a 1,001hp engine needed a power boost (to 1,200hp) and why a car that had new types of wind tunnels designed for it was aerodynamically tweaked.
5. Lamborghini Miura
Year: 1966-1972
The Miura is the forefather of all the two-seat, mid-engined supercars we have today. It also started the tradition of V12, mid-engined Lamborghinis that will fling a driver into a canyon if he's not careful. As nuts as that is, there's something charming about that sort of purity. The Miura was simply the fastest and most engaging car that Lamborghini could build. At the time of its introduction it was the fastest production car in the world, and the Bertone bodywork has stood the test of time far better than its successor, the Countach.
4. McLaren P1
Year: 2013-2014
This car is incredible. This transcends supercar and even the other cars usually referred to as a hypercar. It looks, sounds, and goes like the future. The world's supercars were all sitting around getting ready to do battle with their longbows and the P1 showed up with .50 cal sniper rifle—namely a 727hp twin-turbo V8 backed by a 176hp electric motor meant to fill the gap in the power band due to turbo lag. So yes, it's a $1.5 million hybrid.
This is the future, and the future can lap the 'Ring in well under seven minutes while sounding like a next-generation startship.
3. Duesenberg Model SSJ
Year: 1935
Four hundred horsepower is considered to be a serious number for a high-performance car—like the BMW M3 or Ferrari 360 Modena—in this decade. Just imagine what that kind of number would have sounded like in 1935, when Duesenberg made two supercharged, short-wheelbase Model Js, known today as the SSJs, that managed to provide that much power. No car has ever been more ahead of its time than the Duesenberg SSJ. Oh, the two people the SSJs were made for: Gary Cooper and Clark Gable.
2. Ferrari 250 GTO
Year: 1962-1964
The Ferrari 250 GTO is the record holder for the most expensive car sold for a reason: It's a race-ready, yet still road-legal, version of the most beloved Ferrari of all time. Not only is it one of the most brilliant cars ever made, but it also represents Ferrari's inherent shadiness in a wonderful way: The company was required to make 100 of them for homologation purposes but only made 39. The company got away with this by numbering them out of sequence to suggest cars that were never actually made. It's the ultimate Ferrari, as it embodies everything we know, love, and even hate about the brand.
1. McLaren F1
Year: 1992-1998
What isn't to like about the F1? McLaren's anal-retentive ethos shows through in every aspect of the car, from the gold-plated (for heat dispersion) BMW V12, to the groundbreaking active aerodynamic effects. When it debuted, it was the fastest and most expensive car in the world, but the goal was to simply be the "best road car in the world." We still can't think of anything we'd rather have.
Also, who doesn't love the seating arrangement? One central driver's seat with two passenger seats set back and to the sides is brilliant. More like this, please.