Hooniverse Asks: Who Makes Today's Best Super Car?

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There have always been Super Cars, autos that pushed the boundaries of performance like no other. Whether the Stutz Bearcat, Auburn Speedster, or whatever 12-cylinder car Ferrari placed atop their lineup, there have always been cars that we mere mortals can only dream of, and which challenge the laws of physics with their capabilities.
For a long time, most of those came from Italy. That’s not always been the case, and in fact today with offerings from Great Britain, Germany, and soon from the U.S. of A. it’s apparent that the super car crown is being contested by many a nation.
In the post-war era, Ferrari was once the go-to marque for crazy performance. Then came Lamborghini among others, and suddenly the performance pedestal was getting pretty crowded. Today we have excellent top-performance cars from both of those Italian brands, as well as Bugatti, McLaren, and others, and so that begs the question, who makes the best super car today?
Image: YouTube

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  1. pj134 Avatar
    pj134

    I don’t know, none. They’re all boring and following the same pattern that’s been laid out time and time before. The F1 was probably the last legitimately awesome one. I mean, it’s still the worlds fastest naturally aspirated car.
    Somebody just needs to do something different. Audi putting the R18 drivetrain into something street legal would work for me.

  2. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    Bottom-scraping fruit:
    http://media.caranddriver.com/images/14q4/638369/2015-tesla-model-s-p85d-first-drive-review-car-and-driver-photo-648964-s-original.jpg
    Should be a wagon though.
    It might not offer that crazy performance, but it’s got four doors, seats six, and acceleration seems to be a matter of programming the rightmost pedal. As such, it expands our notion of the possible and desirable.

    1. Jofes2 Avatar
      Jofes2

      Just three years ago I would never have believed that this could be a mass produced electric car in 2015. The Citroën C-Zero was all we had recently, and that meant “electric car” as a concept was still a bit of a joke.

    2. Vairship Avatar
      Vairship

      If it was a wagon (and one-tenth the price) I’d definitely buy one!

    1. CraigSu Avatar
      CraigSu

      Call me a fanboi all you like but I’ll vote for Koenigsegg every time. I mean, how many manufacturers are 3D printing turbochargers out of titanium or making hollow spoke carbon fiber wheels weighing 9 kilos?

  3. PotbellyJoe★★★★★ Avatar
    PotbellyJoe★★★★★

    I love that the performance angles of a hybrid drivetrain are being exploited by numerous companies to make some crazy cars. We have never seen performance numbers like we currently see in terms of handling, speed, acceleration and efficiency.
    That being said, the last truly, I’m going to murder you when you screw up supercar, was the Porsche Carrera GT.
    The LFA had the motor to be one and the insane egineering behind it, but it has too much tech in it that keeps you from being an idiot, and it’s a driveable car. So what you have is an insanely fast, loud, GT car.
    The P1, La LaFerrari, the 918, all of them are ridiculously fast, but they are all driveable by anyone who can afford them.
    Part of the supercar lore is that you have to deal wit a clutch that requires you to do leg lifts at the gym, a gearbox that requires you to heel-toe and blip downshift if you want to keep your neck intact.
    They were raw, they were visceral. They wanted to turn you into a smear on a wall.
    Lawyers don’t like supercars.
    So even if you could get the beancounters to let the engineers go wild ad build one, the lawyers would step in and say, “You know that 911 Turbo I own? It’s plenty fast, mind-bogglingly quick, in fact. It doesn’t try to murder me on my commute.”
    That being said, the Koenigsegg stuff is always cool.

    1. mdharrell Avatar

      “It doesn’t try to murder me on my commute.”
      That’s hardly sporting. I expect my vehicles to show at least some initiative.

      1. PotbellyJoe★★★★★ Avatar
        PotbellyJoe★★★★★

        View post on imgur.com


        Precisely.

  4. Greg Kachadurian Avatar
    Greg Kachadurian

    Koenigsegg undoubtedly makes the most insane car on the road, but something about the McLaren P1 wins my heart. The power, tech, and engineering behind it along with its killer looks just do it for me. It looks out of this world in person…

    1. Kiefmo Avatar
      Kiefmo

      Ford: soon.

    2. Age_of_Aerostar Avatar
      Age_of_Aerostar

      Started to read the article, got 1/2 way through the first sentence, and thought… “Engineerd will post a pic of the new Ford GT”
      Damn, that looks good!

      1. engineerd Avatar
        engineerd

        Somebody has to since $kaycog’s mysterious disappearance.

  5. Andrew_theS2kBore Avatar
    Andrew_theS2kBore

    Looking at it from a slightly different perspective, the Audi R8 would be my vote. It’s not the most “super” supercar, but it is the only one you could live with happily every day, and the performance, handling, looks, and noise are all well above what’s offered by normal sports cars. I was lucky enough to rent one for 24 hours (V8 convertible with the new dual-clutch transmission) and if money were no object it would be my first choice, without question. It doesn’t do any one thing better than all its competitors, but it does EVERYTHING well.

    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      Was that vacation treat? Sounds great – I’ve never tried something like this for an extended amount of time. Being used to “slow car fast” I find it very hard to drive lawfully in such cars. And that, sort of, lessens the experience.

      1. Andrew_theS2kBore Avatar
        Andrew_theS2kBore

        It was a long weekend treat. Where I live (Southern California) there are many canyon roads to the east that are deserted (except for the occasional sports car and sports bike) early on a weekend morning. The roads are twisty enough and the speed limits high enough that you don’t have to bend the letter of the law too much to have fun… or so I’m told.

        1. Rover 1 Avatar
          Rover 1

          I had one for the day once. The second best day of my life.

    2. Kiefmo Avatar
      Kiefmo

      I’m enthusiastic to see how the NSX does as a DD when it finally hits showrooms. Will it take the every day supercar crown again?

      1. Andrew_theS2kBore Avatar
        Andrew_theS2kBore

        Rumor has it that I may be a bit of a Honda fanboy, so suffice to say I wouldn’t be disappointed if that was the case. I just hope they don’t sacrifice their traditional high-revving engine character to make the hybrid system more effective.

        1. Kiefmo Avatar
          Kiefmo

          I, too, have been known to be a near-rabid defender of The Power of Dreams, so I’m with you (see my comment in Monday’s Last Call post).
          Unfortunately, my current Honda does forego revs for a beefy torque wallop in the midrange, but that’s because it’s a minivan. But that’s only because they slapped a spacer under the intake manifold to lengthen the runners. The engine still has that characteristic rush to its fuel cutoff/faux redline (transmission saver), it just happens 1000 rpm sooner.

  6. nanoop Avatar
    nanoop

    I had a 2015 Ford Focus rental recently, and owning the same car as a 1st gen., I felt in a spaceship. Imagine that car with more than 200hp, I’d say we have a winner.
    Seriously, I am not the person to ask due to a certain lack of experience, but there is no car post y2k of which I’d like to have a poster hanging in the garage, let alone living room.

  7. mve Avatar
    mve

    The Sesto Elemento is pretty amazing, even if it is a Gallardo in drag.

      1. Tiller188 Avatar
        Tiller188

        …I don’t want to know what else you came across in the search for that image, do I? (That said, wow, couldn’t have found a more-fitting picture.)

        1. PotbellyJoe★★★★★ Avatar
          PotbellyJoe★★★★★

          “Carbon Fiber Corset” were the search terms.
          I chickened out of taking it any further.