Aj Caldwell: It's a great time to be a car enthusiast.
Modern times have brought us the
mind-boggling performance of electric vehicles
and some updates to some old favorites.
Speed records have been broken again and again
as new technology fuels automakers' competition
for the title of fastest car.
So, as the 2010s near an end,
here are the 10 fastest street-legal cars
of the past decade.
Coming in at the No. 10 spot is a car brand
most people haven't heard of.
Noble is a boutique British automaker
known to engineer some real track beast.
The Noble M600 soars to a top speed of 225 mph
from a 650-horsepower Yamaha V8 engine.
Pagani is a popular car brand among high-end collectors.
Its offerings are designed to be true
pieces of art on wheels.
But the Huayra doesn't just look good;
it's seriously fast.
Engineers tuned a turbocharged Mercedes AMG V12
to push out 700 horses, consequently giving the Huayra
a staggering top speed of 230 mph.
Zenvo didn't hit the car scene until 2008
but gained a lot of attention by producing
a 1,163-horsepower prototype right out the gate.
A few years later, that prototype
became the Zenvo TS1.
Its 5.8-liter V8 with twin superchargers
propel it to 233 mph.
At No. 7 on the list, we have our first hybrid.
Swedish automaker Koenigsegg has produced
some of the most impressive supercars
since it started in 1994,
one of them being the Regera.
The most eye-catching feature is Autoskin,
but the Regera is still all about performance.
It combines three electric motors with
the 5-liter twin-turbo V8 to make 1,500 horsepower,
pushing the Regera to an electronically limited top speed
of 250 mph.
Not to be confused with the previously mentioned Regera
is another entry from Koenigsegg, the Agera R.
It's a limited-run supercar
with multiple acceleration records,
one of them being the fastest 0-to-200 mph time,
at 17.68 seconds.
The 1,140-horsepower engine runs on biofuel
and pushes the car to 260 mph.
Bugatti is one of the most recognizable supercar brands,
and for good reason.
Its cars not only push the limits of automobiles,
but they're also beautifully handcrafted machines.
Its famous W16 engine is a quad-turbocharged monster,
making 1,500 horsepower.
Placed inside the Chiron,
it launches the supercar to 261 mph.
But there's plenty more power after that,
as it's capped with an electronic limiter.
Beating Bugatti is another Bugatti.
The Veyron Super Sport 16.4 set the world record
for fastest production car
with a top speed of 267.857 mph,
though the production version was electronically limited
to 258 mph.
The world record shows just how powerful
its 1,200-horsepower engine really is.
Hennessey Performance Engineering is a car-tuning company
that specializes in modifying sports cars and supercars.
But the Venom GT is a car of its own.
Though it's based off the Lotus Exige platform,
the engineering is all Hennessey.
The Venom GT broke Bugatti's world record in 2014
with a top speed of 270.49 mph.
Building off the success of the Agera R,
Koenigsegg introduced the Agera RS in 2017.
It went on to set the world record
for fastest production car
with a top speed of 277.87 mph.
Though it has the same 5-liter twin-turbocharged V8,
it makes 1,350 horsepower, 210 more than its predecessor.
The owners of each of the 25 Agera RS vehicles
worked with Koenigsegg to personalize every detail,
including color, stitching, power output,
and even nicknaming the car, so no two are alike.
Taking the No. 1 spot is the Bugatti Chiron...again.
This time, with a modified version that's longer,
more aerodynamic, and clearly doesn't have
the electronic limiter.
It's still technically a preproduction prototype,
but it set the world record for fastest supercar
with a top speed of 304.77 mph
in September of 2019.
It's the first car to break the 300-mph barrier,
a feat manufacturers have been trying to achieve
with production cars for years.
So, there you have it.
The fastest street-legal cars of the decade.
The 2010s brought us 300 mph;
we can only imagine what the next decade will bring.
From a V8 twin-turbocharged engine, a 1,200,
I...what? [laughs]
Cameraman: From a V8 twin turbocharged...