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The fastest cars in the world are also, unsurprisingly among the most exclusive and expensive cars you can buy.
The pursuit of top speed has long captivated performance car brands, and continues to this day even as the motoring world starts to move into the electric age. Your 'usual' sports cars and supercars just don't cut it, so multi-million pound hypercars are continuing to push the boundaries of what's possible in terms of speed.
A hundred years ago, the race to build the fastest car had taken cars from being barely faster than horses to being capable of well over 100mph in around two decades. By the 1950s Aston Martin was breaching 150mph with its DB4 GT, while the Ferrari F40 had ventured above the 200mph barrier in the 1980s.
Getting cars to go faster than that became more and more difficult, and then celebrated racing firm McLaren came along to blow everyone out of the water. In 1998, the iconic McLaren F1 breached 240mph – well in excess of what anybody else could manage at the time.
Even when Bugatti's incredible (and incredibly expensive to make) Veyron landed on the scene in 2005 its top speed was 'only' 13mph more than the McLaren, at 253mph. But Bugatti didn't rest on its laurels, coming out with the Veyron Super Sport in 2010 which cracked 267mph.
Since then, there's been all manner of cars (some from companies you might never have heard of) the claim to be even faster still. Bugatti itself replaced the Veyron with the even faster Chiron, and the target shifted to a nice round number: 300mph.
Although Bugatti did manage break the 300mph in 2019 with a lightly modified Chiron Super Sport 300+, the eventual production version was limited to a mere 271mph. Bugatti claims the production car will go to that magic figure, but it will only allow owners to take the car to its full potential under supervision at its own test track.
Because of growing public safety concerns and the safe speed limits of tyres and other components, it remains to be seen if anyone will ever be able to buy a car that, out of the box in production form, can crack 300mph. Still, here's a guide to the fastest production cars currently made today.
Want a really fast car but don't want a guilty conscience? Why not check out our guide to the fastest electric cars you can buy. We've also got 1000s of used cars for sale, including Ferraris, Porsches and McLarens.
World's fastest cars 2024
- Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut
- Hennessey Venom F5
- Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+
- SSC Tuatara
- Rimac Nevera
- McLaren Speedtail
- Aston Martin Valkyrie
- Koenigsegg Gemera
- Koenigsegg Regera
- Aspark Owl
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