Fast Company

This has been the quintessential question for drivers of fast cars since the automobile's inception. "Doing a ton" is the British expression for exceeding the 100 mph mark on the road. A three-liter Bent-ley did it in 1921. It took another 66 years before a Ferrari F40 could^ double that speed, and a little mot than a quarter of that time befo Bugatti Veyron 16.4 excee< Just a few months ago a n came along and set the ba higher: 256 mph. In a trul duction car, you'll need nen steel—not to mention a steady mj the wheel and lightning-fast re ^pns—to get near 200 mph. If you make any corrections at that speed, you must do them precisely or you'll career off the road. The view through the windshield brings to mind a giant vacuum cleaner frantically sucking up everything in your path. The engine's earn is loud and shrill, and the id is suddenly much narrower. You can barely look at the speedometer. You don't dare...but you can't resist.

.ast quarter century a few supercar builders have quietly competed for the unofficial title of the world's fastest produc^^Wjoad car. I have been lucky enougmo^anve just about all of them. Their top speeds are debated, but what you'll see printed here is generally believed to be accu­rate. It isn't easy to get your hands on these wheels, but you can take a ride with us right now. Buckle up.

189 mph: he 288 GTO hit the

1QOA streets about the

same time Risky Busi-FERRARI ness arrived in theaters 288 GTO and the first camcorder appeared. You prob­ably never saw that GTO in person: Only 272 were built, and few arrived in America. The sticker was about $84,000—a princely sum in the early Reagan years but worthy of the fastest customer car in the world. On the track at Pocono in Pennsylvania, I couldn't believe this Berlinetta's belt-in-the-back wallop under hard acceleration. Sporting a deep-seated driving posi­tion and hyperfast steering, it was an astonishing performer. The piercing shriek of its Fl-inspired midship tur-bocharged 394 bhp 2.9-liter V8 inches behind the ears is some­thing a man can never forget.

197 mph: "Three years IQ07 ' later Porsche

stole the fastest pro-PORSCHE duction car title with the 959 959. Everything Porsche

engineers had learned over decades of competition was built into this silver bullet. Originally de­signed for FIA Group B racing, a much modified 959 won the grueling Paris-Dakar rally in 1986. In 1987 the factory decided to make it available to custom­ers who could muster up $230,000. I drove one at Porsche's Weissach test track in Germany. Flattening the pedal resulted in a moonshot-like blastoff, and the huge brakes instantly reversed the

process. Engine: a twin-turbo air-cooled all-alloy 450 bhp 2.8-liter flat six. The swoopy lightweight body was made of Kevlar and fiberglass-reinforced plastic panels; the doors and hood were alu­minum. Until a recent National High-

way Traffic Safety Administration rule change, this Porsche was unavailable stateside. Today Ralph Lauren is one of the few proud American owners.

201 mph: pnzo Ferrari

1007 '_himself

unveiled the

Ferrari F4o-thecom-

F40 pany's 40th

anniversary

model—at his Maranello fac­tory. It was the last time many of us saw the old man alive. The first pro­duction car to bust 200 mph was sur­prisingly easy to drive, though it didn't have power steering. Tucked behind the

cockpit in this featherweight body lived a twin-turbo 2.9-liter V8 that produced 478 bhp. Ferrari's stunning flagship be­came an instant collector's item; 1,315 were made over six years. Only 200 made it to the U.S., and though the list price was $417,000. some buyers paid more than $1 million. For Enzo Ferrari it was a fitting final bow.

202 mph: 1990

Lamborghini Diablo

! n 1990. if you had !the checkbook and the cojones, this freakishly hot Lambo was the most exotic and fastest car money could buy. For $240,000 you got the stylish supercar grandson of the Lambo Countach. with scissor doors

and an exhaust j note that sound-¦ ed like a pack of f angry lions. We rode in a Diablo in Sant'Agata Bolo-gnese with factory racer and ex-world rally champ Sandro Munari. who could thread nee­dles with this big mama and get it so sideways you could practically read your own license plate. Then we had our chance to put the 5.7-liter V12's

492 horses to the pavement on winding Italian back roads. The Diablo ("devil" in Spanish) was aptly named.

212 mph: A

/"^Volkswagen pur­chased the name. Bu-gatti was a small revival courtesy of some Italian investors. How could such a firm get the attention it needed to survive the cutthroat automobile game? By building the fastest pro­duction car on earth. The EB 110 could

1992

BUGATTI

EB110

perform a zero-to-60 mph sprint in 3.5 seconds and fly well past 200 mph. Driven on an Italian autostrada, the all-wheel-drive Bugatti planted itself

and took off like a demented bat,

and the rocket ship-inspired styl-

I ing drew plenty of attention. A

iquad-turbocharged 60-valve V12 pumped out an astonishing (for 1992) 552 bhp and revved to 8.200 rpm. The steering was ex­tremely quick, but the brakes, though effective, needed a heavy foot.

217 mph: This Dag's storv is one

199? of hype, speed and

failure. The XJ22O (op-JAGUAR posite page, top left) X J220 evolved as a pet project

of Jaguar chief engineer ]im Randle. whose intent was to take the marque into the 1990s with a state-of-the-art supercar. Orders filed in. But by the time the first cars were delivered, the design had been heavily tweaked to meet emissions and other standards. Custom­ers complained they'd been duped. Then the economy went south, making it dif­ficult to move a $706,000 automobile. Order cancellations, lawsuits. In the

end, Jaguar built 281 examples, and many sat on the market for years. In the passenger seat with racing driver Martin Brundle, I hit 190 mph on England's MIRA test track. The ride felt secure and

beyond quick. -

Daguar "disposed" of some left­overs by hosting a U.S. race series called Fast Masters. Drivers battered these cars so furiously, the series was nicknamed Crash Masters.

231 mph: ~| aV Leno, a proud

1993 McLaren owner,

once caUed njs pi

MCLAREN Fl -the greatest car of the 20th century." A collaboration between racing engineer Cordon Murray, BMW Motorsport and McLaren Croup boss Ron Den­nis, the FT was a million-dollar hunk of supreme exotica. The snake-belly-low carbon- . > HK Ji composite coupe f ^^1A^ I

embodied tons of Formula One technol­ogy, starting with an unusual center driv­ing position. It didn't, however, have power

steering or antilock brakes. The midship all-alloy 6.1-liter BMW VI2 delivered 627 bhp. In 1993 racer Jonathan Palmer hit 231 mph on Italy's Nardo test track. Five years later Andy Wal­lace upped the production-car speed record to an unnerving 240 mph.

241 mph: |n1994, Swede Chris-

2005 tian von Koenig-

segg announced that

KOENIGSEGG he intended to pro-

CCR duce the world's fast-

est customer car. He was 22 years old, his company was based in Sweden, and he had no real exotic-automobile experience. Eleven years later his 806 bhp Koenigsegg CCR— packing a twin-supercharged 47-liter V8—hit 241 mph at Nardo in Italy. Koenig­segg has sold about 90 cars so far, now with a sticker starting at more than a cool million. Koenigseggs finally became avail­able in the States in November, and Chris­tian K. claims they'll deliver 3.2-second dashes to 62 and a 245 mph top speed. This is some Swedish meatball.

253 mph: \/olkswagen AC 2005 revived the Bu-

gatti name with a car BUGATTI that broke every re-

VEYRON 16.4 cord, starting with its

$1.3 million price tag. The heart of the creature is a mid-mounted all-aluminum eight-liter W16 engine with a quartet of turbochargers

and intercoolers that develops a head-spinning 1,001 bhp. You sit low in the Veyron, and its snug cockpit and high belt line make you feel as if you're in a leather-lined foxhole. We piloted one on back roads north of Jacksonville, Flor­ida and on an airport runway. Accelera­tion is brutal-2.5 seconds to 62 mph. Your eyes bounce into your brainpan. Thanks to the all-wheel-drive system, those 1,001 horses hit the ground run­ning. The shifts (seven-speed manual) are lightning-quick. When you step out of a Veyron, you feel no

one will ever build any­thing fast­er. Then the next ride comes along....

256 mph: 2007 Shelby SuperCars Ultimate Aero

Zero to 60 in 2.78 seconds? In the time it takes you to sneeze (shift to second now!), you'll sear past 60 mph. At 80 (third!), the twin turbos exhale. Then the world melts into a blur

(fourth!). Forget about getting a ticket—if a cop spots you spiking past 150 mph, you'll go right to jail (brakes!). Mere

months ago the American-bred $630,000 SSC Ultimate Aero stole the mantle of world's fastest production car. A test driver piloted one on a closed public road, averaging 256.18 mph—Guinness World Records verified it. The brainchild of 40-year-old Derod Shelby (no relation to Carroll), the car has a mid-mounted twin-turbo 6.4-liter V8 that produces 1,183 bhp-about eight and a half Honda Civics combined. A playboy test driver took the supercar out on roads in and around Vegas. "Mash the gas and it sounds like two draaons are havina

frenzied sex right behind your head." he reported. "It's man­ageable in city traffic, but this kind of roid-rage power is intimidating, especially with no ABS. power brakes, power steering or traction controls. Pure, fast and very scary."