The world’s fastest road cars 2017
Ever since the dawn of the car, it’s been the mission of makers to build the fastest car possible. And today, the world’s fastest road cars are at the cutting edge of vehicle development, so what better way to highlight this technology than to list the ten fastest cars in the world today?
Once the initial rules regarding having some bloke walk in front of your car with a crimson flag had been abolished, it’s been something of an arms race inbetween car makers to build the fastest cars possible. While the Land Speed Record has been pursued for decades, it was only indeed in the Fifties that car manufacturers commenced boasting about the top speeds of their cars.
One of the very first cars to boast about its top speed was the Jaguar XK120, as its name was supposed to infer its 120mph top speed. In reality, the very first XK was marginally quicker than that, while Jaguar timed a modified example at 132mph in 1949.
Later, the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing hit 140mph in 1955, the Aston Martin DB4 GT broke 150mph in one thousand nine hundred fifty nine and the Iso Grifo broke the 160mph barrier. Things moved up a gear when the very first modern supercar was produced in 1967, as the Lamborghini Miura broke 170mph. Lambo took the 180mph record with the Countach in the 1980s, while the Ferrari F40 broke the 200mph barrier in 1987.
Only six years later, the McLaren F1 shoved the speed record to 230mph, albeit in some ways this was an accidental byproduct of designer Gordon Murray’s intent to build the best high-performance sports car in the world. As if to prove the point, it was twelve years before the technical tour de force that is the Bugatti Veyron eventually hammer the McLaren, and the F1 is still the fastest naturally aspirated car ever built.
The Veyron used a 1,000bhp quad-turbo W16 engine, four-wheel drive and active aerodynamics to reach 254mph, while the final Super Sport added another 4mph to become the world’s fastest car as recognised by the Guinness Book Of Records.
However, as our list exposes, there are slew of rival models that can challenge the Veyron, while the Veyron’s replacement, the Chiron, is looking to raise the bar even further. Our list below features the current fastest cars in the world. Some don’t qualify for induction into the Guinness records because they aren’t produced in sufficient numbers, but that doesn’t mean they are by any means slow.
Click the links below or at the top left of this page to find out which cars are the best in the business at going indeed, truly prompt.