Fastest cars in the world 2025

SSC is a name you may not have heard of, but the North American outfit held the Guinness World Record for the fastest production car for three years with the mid-2000s SSC Ultimate Aero.

The SSC Tuatara is a 1750PS hypercar using a highly tuned 5.9-litre twin-turbo V8. SSC got into some controversy in 2020 by claiming a production car record at an incredible 316mph, only for the claims to be dropped amidst issues with the data-logging side of things. 

Not to be deterred, SSC had another crack with the Tuatara in early 2021, using specialist measuring gear monitored by engineers. The data they provided showed the Tuatara hit 286mph and averaged 282.9mph across both runs – enough to smash the record held by the Koenigsegg Agera since 2017. That's the speed we're quoting here to put it top of our list.

In 2022, it managed 295mph on a one-way run. Further attempts are planned as SSC wants to try and crack the 300mph barrier. The Washington-built Tuatara is said to cost around £1.63m, with 100 examples made, and not all were sold. 

There's nothing theoretical about the top speed of the Koenigsegg Agera RS. It was proven in perhaps the boldest way possible, not on a wide test track, but using a closed bit of public road in Nevada. In November 2017, Koenigsegg's test driver Niklas Lija clocked an average of 277.9mph in each direction, satisfying the requirements for a Guinness World Record for the world's fastest car. 

Although the record has to be based on the average, it's worth pointing out the highest speed reached by the car was a sensational 284.6mph. To get there, the Agera RS called upon a twin-turbocharged V8 putting out a monstrous 1360PS thanks to the fitting of Koenigsegg's '1-megawatt' package. Otherwise, the RS makes 'just' 1,176PS. 

Few will ever get to experience this, with Koenigsegg only building 27 examples of the car, with the last rolling off the production line in July 2018. 

Some within Bugatti HQ must have been pretty miffed when a small company nabbed the original Veyron's production car speed record with the SSC Ultimate Aero, a low-volume supercar powered by a modified Chevrolet engine. 

It answered back in stunning fashion a few years later, though, with the Veyron 16.4 Super Sport, which upped the output from the 'regular' Veyron's 1001PS 8.0-litre, quad-turbo W16 to 1200PS. It comfortably eclipsed the 256mph set by the SSC by clocking 267.91mph at VW's Ehra-Lessien test track. 

There was some controversy over Bugatti removing the car's 258mph top speed limiter, in place on customer Super Sports to protect the tyres, leading to the record briefly being pulled by Guinness. It was reinstated a week later. 

It'd hold that record a lot longer than the two and a half years the Veyron 16.4 stayed at the top. More than seven years passed before Koenigsegg came along and nabbed the title of world's fastest. 

Another Bugatti to land a spot in our list is the W16 Mistral, the fastest roofless road car ever made. In November 2024, a Mistral clocked a verified 282.04mph at the Papenberg test track in Northern Germany. However, its best two-way average is 267.9mph set in 2010, which is the speed we're taking for the purposes of this list.

It’s not the first time we’ve received a car from Bugatti that’ll naturally mould your hair. In 2012, Bugatti built the fastest roofless car, the Grand Sport Vitesse, which reached an average top speed of 254.04mph. 

Suitably named after a southerly French wind, the Mistral doesn’t share a single carbon fibre body panel with the Chiron, although it does use the same carbon tub, suspension, brakes, and gearbox. To help hit its monstrous top speed is a 1600PS engine tune from the Chiron Super Sport. 

Plans to retire the glorious W16, an engine that had been pushing Bugatti up the top speed ranks since 2005, were well in motion, and the Mistral was the last car to house all 8.0 litres of it. 

Unfortunately, even if you have a spare £4.2m (before tax) gathering dust in your savings account, Bugatti has sold all 99 cars. 

The Nevera is built by Croatian company Rimac, which owns a controlling stake in Bugatti alongside Porsche. Its EV hypercar is capable of 258mph flat-out, putting it right up there with the quickest petrol-powered cars. 

The Nevera, which puts out a combined 1900PS from four electric motors powering each individual wheel, can accelerate from 0-62mph in under two seconds and cover the quarter mile in 8.6 seconds. Of course, we know EVs can be lightning fast away from the line, but to stop the Nevera's acceleration tailing off, Rimac uses a pair of single-speed transmissions. 

There's more technical innovation in the Nevera than just raw speed, with extremely clever torque vectoring and a chunky 120kWh battery, which is claimed to give a range of 340 miles. It also has the most powerful regenerative braking of any EV, capable of up to 300kW of power. 

Priced from £1.72m, 150 examples are set to be produced, but Rimac is having a tough time selling them all. Company founder Mate Rimac reckons this is down to well-heeled hypercar buyers preferring combustion-powered vehicles when spending seven-figure sums. 

The newest ultra-mega-hypercar on the block at the time of writing is the all-electric U9 Xtreme from Yangwang, which is a luxury sub-brand of BYD. In September 2025 it recorded an astonishing top-speed of 308.4mph at a test track in Germany, there has yet to be any independent two-way verification.

Yangwang has confirmed that 30 units of the U9 Xtreme (known as the U9X for ease of writing) will be made, each with four high-speed motors that spin at up to 30,000rpm and produce a frankly face-melting combined output of 3000PS. Its top-speed mark makes it the overall world's fastest car, with the caveat that it doesn't meet the testing criteria for this article.

You can buy a standard Yamgwang U9 supercar for less than £200,000, but the Xtreme model will be rather a lot more – although an official price has not been confirmed.

The once-'fastest ever' car on sale has a caveat: like the Venom F5 mentioned further down the page, its top speed is theoretical for now and based on calculations. Still, legendary Swedish hypercar maker Koenigsegg is so confident its Jesko Absolut will deliver that it vows never to make a faster series production road car than this.

The Jesko Absolut is powered by a twin-turbo V8, which can generate "a minimum" of 1600PS on special E85 fuel. The company boss describes it as a "land-based rocket-ship determined to reach unheard-of speed in record-setting pace." 

How fast exactly? Well, Koenigsegg's own target was 310mph, but the company's simulations suggest that it will go even faster than that thanks to the Jesko Absolut's super slippery, low-drag body. 

The issue will be finding a long and straight bit of tarmac to get it up there. Still, it surpassed 311mph during a chassis dyno test in 2024 before hitting the rev limiter in ninth gear, meaning it’s got even more in it.

No 'fastest cars' list on the internet is complete without a Bugatti or two. The 'standard' Chiron, like the Veyron before it, is a mind-blowing piece of engineering, but that doesn't mean it can't be bettered. 

The Chiron Super Sport 300+ is a special version of the already special Chiron Super Sport, built to commemorate a modified Chiron becoming the first hypercar to crack 300mph in 2019 at a recorded speed of 304.773mph one-way. The production car's top speed is electronically capped at 273mph, but Bugatti will reportedly let owners add in a roll cage and attempt their high speed at the company's Ehra-Lessien test track. 

As well as a 1600PS version of the Chiron's quad-turbo 8.0-litre W16 engine, the Super Sport 300+ gets a longer, aerodynamically optimised body and extensive weight-saving measures. A total of 30 were built, and all sold for £3.1m each.

Hennessey has spent the last 30 years modifying everything from Ferraris to pickup trucks to Dodge Vipers. But it’s dabbled in full vehicle production twice now: first with the Lotus-derived 2011 Venom GT (capable of 270mph) and now with the super quick Venom F5. 

The Venom F5 is not a Lotus Elise modified out of all recognition; instead, it's a bespoke, carbon-bodied hypercar with an in-house platform and a 6.6-litre twin-turbo V8 with more than 1800PS (an F5 Evolution version revealed in 2025 claims 2031PS). It has a kerb weight of just 1380kg, so performance should be unhinged. 

Like the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut, Hennessey is yet to attempt a full top-speed run, although it almost did 222mph over the half mile. Still, Hennessey is hopeful the Venom F5 will reach or exceed 311mph. And we believe them. After all, it will do 0-186mph in just 8.4 seconds. All 24 made were also sold for an eye-watering £2.03m.

The Venom GT was Hennessey’s first serious step into the world of complete car production. Based on a heavily modified Lotus Exige chassis, it swapped the Exige’s modest four-cylinder for a 7.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 producing 1244PS, while keeping the kerb weight down to roughly the same figure in kilograms. That gave it one of the best power-to-weight ratios of any car of its era, and instantly turned the Venom GT into a Bugatti-baiting contender.

In 2014, Hennessey took the Venom GT to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it clocked 270.49mph – faster than the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. However, because the attempt was only a single run (the runway wasn’t long enough for a two-way pass), it wasn’t eligible for Guinness recognition. Even so, the Venom GT proved that Hennessey could compete with the world’s top hypercar builders on raw speed.

Production numbers were tiny: just 13 cars left Hennessey’s facility between 2011 and 2017, with coupe and roadster versions offered to a handful of wealthy buyers. Its extreme rarity, outrageous speed, and the fact it laid the groundwork for the bespoke Venom F5, mean the Venom GT is remembered as both a world-class engineering statement and the launchpad for Hennessey’s hypercar ambitions.

(Just slipping off this list is the Bugatti Tourbillon, which has a higher claimed speed of 277mph. But it hasn't proved it yet – the Venom GT has.)