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Fastest cars in the world by top speed, 0-60 and quarter mile

A claim for the title of “Fastest Car in the World” might seem easy to settle. ItÂ’s actually anything but: Are we talking production cars, race cars or customized monsters? And what does “fastest” even mean? For years, car publications have tended to define “fastest” in terms of an unbeatable top speed. ThatÂ’s distinct from the “quickest” car in a Usain Bolt-style dash from the starting blocks, as with the familiar 0-60 mph metric. Professionals often focus on track lap times or elapsed time-to-distance, as with a drag racer thatÂ’s first to trip the beam of light at the end of a quarter-mile; or the 1,000-foot trip of nitromethane-powered NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car dragsters. Something tells us, however, that you're not seeking out an answer of "Brittany Force rewriting the NHRA record books with a 3.659-second pass at a boggling 338.17 mph." For most barroom speed arguments, the focus is firmly on cars you can buy in showrooms, even if many are beyond the financial means of all but the wealthiest buyers and collectors. Here are some of the enduring sources of speed claims, counter-claims, tall tales and taunting dismissals that are the lifeblood of car enthusiasts – now with EVs adding an unexpected twist to these passionate pursuits.   Fastest from the blocks: 0-60 mph Thirty years ago, any car that could clock 60 mph in five seconds or less was considered extremely quick. Today, high-performance, gasoline-powered sedans and SUVs are routinely breaking below 4 seconds. As of today, the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 crushes all with a 0-60 mph time of just 1.66 seconds. That's simply absurd, but keep in mind the Demon was engineered with the single-minded purpose of going fast in a straight line. It's also important to realize that direct comparisons are difficult, because not all of these times were accomplished with similar conditions (prepped surfaces, adjustments for elevation and so on). The moral here is to take these times with a tiny grain of salt. After the Dodge, the Rimac Nevera comes in with an officially recorded 0-60 mph time of just 1.74 seconds. EVs crowd the quickest list, with the Pininfarina Battista coming in a few hundredths slower (1.79 seconds) than the Nevera and the Lucid Air sapphire (1.89 seconds) right after that. Eventually, you arrive to the Tesla Model S Plaid, which has a claimed 1.99-second 0-60 mph time, though instrumented testing by Car and Driver shows it accomplishes the deed in 2.1 seconds.

Porsche acquires Kyalami race track at auction

With more victories under its belt than any other manufacturer, you could say, in a figurative sense at least, that Porsche owns countless numbers of race tracks around the world. But here we're not talking about figuratively owning a track - we're talking about literally buying one. And Porsche has just bought Kyalami.
Kylamai, for those unfamiliar, is a grand prix circuit near Johannesburg in South Africa. Between 1967 and 1985, and again in '92 and '93, it was home to the South African Grand Prix, and has since hosted a variety of local and lower-level international races, but apparently fell on hard times. As a result, the track's owners - listed as Universal Property Professionals - put it up for auction. Bidders had to deposit four million Rand (about $380k) to participate, but after just 50 seconds, the auction was over.
The winning bid was placed - via telephone from the local press launch for the Macan - by Porsche South Africa CEO Toby Venter, who bid a reported 205 million rand (about $19.5 million) to take over the complex. The German automaker's South African division reportedly intends to keep the track open for racing, but could also be expected to use the facility for testing, customer track days and such moving forward.

2015 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid

When the Porsche Panamera joined the hybrid poker game with the S Hybrid, it started with a seat at the penny-ante table: engineers inserted a 47-horsepower electric motor between the gas engine and eight-speed automatic, powered by a 1.7-kWh nickel-metal hydride battery. It was tiny stakes, the kind of non-risk taken when you're trying to figure out both how to play the game and how you want to play the game. After two years of experimenting, the 2015 Panamera S E-Hybrid makes a bigger bet – the kind that requires paper bills and the maxim, "If you can't fold it, hold it." Porsche's plug-in hybrid gets every adjective we expect of a successor from Stuttgart: more complex, more efficient, more powerful and faster. Driving Notes The electric motor leaps from 47 hp to 95 hp thanks to more windings on the stator coils and new power electronics. The battery goes from a 1.7-kWh nickel-metal hydride unit to 9.4-kWh lithium-ion setup; it's the same physical size as before, still mounted under the cargo deck. Internal combustion still comes from the Audi-sourced, 333-hp, supercharged V6, but total system power goes from 380 hp and 428 pound-feet of torque in the S Hybrid to 416 hp and 435 lb-ft in the S E-Hybrid. The previous system could run a mile on electricity, this one is estimated to last more than 20 miles on e-power on the European cycle. The 0-60 dash takes 5.2 seconds, down from 5.7 seconds; top speed in electric-only mode is 84 mph – up from 50 mph. It takes 2.5 hours at a 240-volt outlet to fully recharge the battery; the Porsche Universal Charger comes equipped with a cable for that and a standard 120-volt socket. Only Panamera obsessives will notice the sheetmetal changes for 2015, but there are sharper lines on the front and rear fascias, faint revisions made to the light clusters, wider glass – over the same-sized opening – on the rear tailgate, and a wider rear spoiler. Outsiders will know the S E-Hybrid because of Acid Green highlights on the fender and tailgate logos, as well as the Acid Green brake calipers. Inside, the central tach remains, but the analog speedometer was evicted to make space for the battery power meter, and Acid Green needles dance across all the gauges. The navigation screen shows your electric driving range and the Porsche Car Connect service provides the expected, smartphone-controlled e-mobility features.