Editorial

A British roadster, an American V8, and a Texan's idea that humbled Ferrari.

A race car made road-legal — and, to many eyes, the most beautiful car ever built.

The range-topping twin-turbo V12 that crowned Aston Martin's grand tourers and chased Ferrari's front-engined flagships.

An elegant grand tourer that became, thanks to one film, the most famous car in the world.

Aston Martin's flagship hypercar: a hand-built, carbon-tubbed V12 made in numbers small enough to name it.

A track-only, naturally aspirated V12 hypercar built in numbers chosen to echo the hours of Le Mans.

A road-legal Formula 1 car, engineered by Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing around a high-revving hybrid V12.

The homologation special that shrank the quattro into a Group B weapon.

BMW's only mid-engined production car for thirty years — and the reason BMW Motorsport exists as a road-car maker.

The car built to do the impossible number: 400 km/h, in something you could drive to dinner.

Chevrolet's answer to the Mustang — a rushed counterpunch that became an icon in its own right.

Ferrari's first series-production plug-in hybrid, and the most powerful road car the marque had yet built.

A homologation racing Ferrari that became the most valuable car in the world.

The last of Ferrari's front-engined V12 grand tourers before the marque committed its flagships to mid-engined layouts.

A twin-turbocharged homologation special built for Group B, reworking the 308 GTB into one of the fastest Ferraris of its era.

The wide-hipped, strake-flanked flat-12 that became the definitive Ferrari of the 1980s.

The last car Enzo Ferrari signed off — a stripped, twin-turbo answer to a rival's speed.

Ferrari's attempt to sell a Formula 1 car with a numberplate.

Ferrari's 1996 return to the front-engine V12 grand tourer, 23 years after the Daytona bowed out.

Ferrari's turn-of-the-millennium flagship, named for its founder and engineered to put Formula One technology on the road.

The last naturally aspirated V8 to power a mid-engined Ferrari before the marque committed to turbochargers.

The most powerful Ferrari road car at its 2012 debut, and among the last of Maranello's great naturally aspirated front-engined V12 grand tourers before turbos and hybrids.

A front-engined, naturally aspirated V12 flagship built around one of the most powerful atmospheric engines Ferrari ever made.

The front-engined Ferrari that made the grand tourer feel modern again: a twin-turbo V8 wrapped in deliberately understated Italian tailoring.

The first road-going Ferrari to wear a six-cylinder badge, a plug-in hybrid that revived the marque's V6 bloodline.

The car that put the world on wheels — and invented the way everything else would be built.

The 1964 World's Fair debut that gave America its original pony car.

The car Enzo Ferrari reportedly called the most beautiful ever made — at half the price of his own.

Briefly the fastest production car in the world, powered, controversially, by a twin-turbocharged V6 rather than the V12 it was first promised.

Koenigsegg's Agera successor: a flat-plane twin-turbo V8 hypercar built in two forms, one shaped for the corners and one for the record books.

The car that put the engine behind the driver and made the supercar a shape.

The scissor-doored wedge that turned Marcello Gandini's mid-mounted V12 into a bedroom-wall icon and set the template for the modern supercar.

Lamborghini's flagship for the whole of the 1990s, and the first of its cars to run past 200 mph.

Audi's first clean-sheet Lamborghini: a scissor-doored, all-wheel-drive V12 flagship that replaced the Diablo and ran the better part of a decade.

Lamborghini's first production V10 and its best-selling car, the Gallardo carried Sant'Agata from boutique output into genuine series production.

For over a decade Lamborghini's V12 flagship, built on a carbon-fibre monocoque around a naturally aspirated engine that resisted the industry's turn to turbocharging.

The first car designed from a blank sheet to win rallies — and it did, three years running.

The unassuming family hatchback that became rallying's most decorated homologation special.

Toyota spent a decade building a supercar almost no one asked for — and made a masterpiece.

Britain's folded-paper wedge: the mid-engined Lotus that surfaced on screen as a submarine and stayed in production for the better part of three decades.

The car that saved Lotus by subtraction: a bonded-aluminium tub, a modest engine, and almost nothing else.

A road car built with no compromises — and, for years, the fastest one on Earth.

The hybrid hypercar that carried McLaren's Ultimate Series into the electrified age, built alongside the Ferrari LaFerrari and Porsche 918 Spyder.

The Ultimate Series McLaren that traded comfort and styling for downforce, and took its name from a Formula 1 legend.

The road car that gave the world gullwing doors — and the first fuel-injected production engine.

A tiny economy car whose packaging idea reshaped almost every small car that followed.

Mitsubishi's tenth and last Evolution retired the engine that made the name and bet everything on an all-new turbo four and active torque vectoring.

The car the Australians nicknamed Godzilla — and then had banned for winning too much.

Nissan's hand-built, all-wheel-drive coupe that chased down supercars with a twin-turbo V6 and refused to age.

Horacio Pagani's debut supercar wrapped a hand-built Mercedes-AMG V12 in exposed carbon fibre, and stayed in production, in tiny numbers, for two decades.

Pagani's second road car answered the Zonda with active aerodynamics and a hand-built Mercedes-AMG V12.

A cynical loophole and a big engine in a small car — and, with it, the muscle car was born.

The air-cooled, rear-engined coupe that Porsche spent a quarter-century refining without ever redrawing.

A rally car that never got to race — and became the most advanced road car of its decade.

The last great analogue supercar — a Le Mans engine, a manual gearbox, and nothing to save you.

Porsche's mid-engined coupe, the fixed-roof sibling to the open-topped Boxster.

Porsche's plug-in hybrid flagship paired a race-derived V8 with two electric motors and reset what a road car could do on a race track.

The rally-bred Impreza generation that carried the turbocharged WRX and STI to a global audience across three infamous face-swaps.

The car that proved Japan could build something beautiful — and made the world take notice.

Toyota's straight-six flagship coupe, and the twin-turbo A80 whose 2JZ engine became a tuning legend.

A car with an ugly history that became the most-produced single design ever made.