© Luke Jackson Clark/Lotus/dpa/TNS
The Lotus Evija is powered by four electric motors delivering a total output of 1,471 kW/2,000 hp.
35 years have passed since its launch, and the Ferrari F40 remains without a doubt one of the most iconic cars in automotive history. With this spectacular high-priced, high-performance model, Ferrari created a new category of vehicles in 1987.
Its power of 352 kW/478 hp made it the first road car to break the 200 mph barrier. With a top speed of 321 km/h, the F40 was declared the new supercar.
© Philipp Rupprecht/Rimac/dpa/TNS
The Rimac Refrigerator accelerates with its electric motors in two seconds from 0 to 100 km/h and reaches a maximum speed of 412 km/h, according to its manufacturers.
Frank Wilke, a specialist in classic cars at the German market analysis company Classic Analytics, points out that the Ferrari F40 did not play alone in the super-fast league, and that at that time there were at least two other models in the same category: the Porsche 959, which was introduced around the same time, and the McLaren F1, which first burst onto the fast lane in 1993.
© Pininfarina/dpa/TNS
The Pininfarina Battista reaches a top speed of 350 km/h with its purely electric power of 1,900 hp.
The Porsche, with 331 kW/450 hp, arrived shortly before the Ferrari and, with its 317 km/h top speed, was for a few months the fastest road-legal production car in the world.
With the driver’s seat moved to the centre, the McLaren offered not only incredible performance of up to 461 kW/627 hp and a top speed of 370 km/h, but also the driving experience of a Formula 1 racing car.
The curators of the Autoworld automobile museum in Brussels write that there have always been sports cars, and it is precisely to this category of vehicles that they dedicated a special exhibition at the beginning of the year.
The organizers went back to the Lamborghini Miura (1966) and the Countach (1971), which they catalog as icons of their time. Nor was the Mercedes 300 SL from 1954 missing.
As for the genesis of the F40, 959 and F1 models, an expert at the American sports car dealership Marshall Goldmann in Beverly Hills explains that the stock market boom of the 1980s had pumped so much money into the coffers of the super-rich that the time had come to create a new category of vehicles with more sophisticated technology and reduced editions.
According to Frank Wilke, in the wake of these models a whole series of superfasts emerged who dared to come out of hiding and applied to enter the exclusive circle.
The expert believes that, as spectacular as cars like the 1992 Jaguar XJ220, the Lamborghini Diablo (1990) or, before them, the BMW M1 (1978) were, they were never considered supercars.
“They were eye-catching, but they were too conventional in design. For the top division, you always need unique technology,” says Wilke, referring to the unique carbon bodywork of the Ferrari F40 or the center seat of the McLaren F1.
For that reason, it would take a few decades for the next generation of supercars to make their debut, pushing boundaries to the point of being immediately celebrated as hypercars. And, not surprisingly, these came from the same protagonists: Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche. On this occasion, the revolutionary technology they used to take the leap to the next dimension was the hybrid drive.
© Ferrari/dpa/TNS
The LaFerrari supercar, manufactured between 2013 and 2018, was the Italian manufacturer’s first road model with a hybrid engine.
Inspired by the timid electrification of Formula 1, the LaFerrari, the P1 and the 918 Spyder not only drive through the city austere and quiet as a whisper, but also offer extremely high performance and acceleration and speed values that were almost unimaginable before.
The LaFerrari develops a power of 708 kW/963 hp, goes from 0 to 100 km/h in less than three seconds and reaches a top speed of 350 km/h. The British offer in the P1 674 kW/916 hp, 2.8 seconds and also 350 km/h. The German Porsche specifies values of 652 kW/887 hp, 2.6 seconds and 345 km/h.
© McLaren/dpa/TNS
The McLaren P1 is an F1-inspired hybrid supercar.
It is also worth mentioning the Bugatti Veyron, designed by the German Volkswagen and produced by the French manufacturer Bugatti from 2005 to 2015. This car was no less spectacular, but, despite its powerful 16 cylinders and 8.0 liters of displacement and a then unimaginable 883 kW/1200 kW internal combustion engine, it was still comparatively conventional. The Chiron followed in 2016. Both are hypercars that will eventually become modern classics or sit parked in museums like Autoworld in Brussels.
The next generation of performance cars is already revving up, and car enthusiasts are looking for a new name for them. For the first time with a fully electric drive, its performance reaches a new level with maximum values of up to 1,471 kW/2,000 hp.
The specifications exceed those of Formula 1: from 0 to 100 in less than two seconds and more than 400 km / h at full throttle, figures that might intimidate even professional drivers in the style of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton .
© Yves Noel/Autoworld-Brussels/dpa/TNS
Bugatti’s Veyron exceeds 400 km/h with its 16-cylinder engine.
You will also have to get used to new names. Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren continue to bet on internal combustion engines for their top models, at least until now. Newcomers such as Rimac, Pininfarina and Lotus are on their way to the top setting records with their Nevera, Battista and Evija electric models.
© Porsche AG/dpa/TNS
The Porsche 959 was for a brief time in the 1980s the fastest road-legal production car in the world.
It is difficult to predict if and how the race will continue. Experts such as Jan Burgard of the international consulting firm Berylls have justifiable doubts regarding the next generation of supercars. At least if they are judged according to the traditional disciplines.
© Yves Noel/Autoworld-Brussels/dpa/TNS
A colorful display of supercars, at the Autoworld museum in Brussels.
“In the electric world, performance is a variable too easy to achieve to define a car through it,” says Burgard. Not surprisingly, sedans like the Mercedes EQS, with its 560 kW/761 hp, already offer more power than a supercar. Not to mention the up to 750 kW/1020 hp of the Tesla Model S or the 817 kW/1111 hp of the Lucid Air.
© Yves Noel/Autoworld-Brussels/dpa/TNS
A Ferrari legend: The F40 went on sale in the time of Enzo Ferrari and is considered one of the first supercars.
“Even when these values double or triple once more, we enter a range in which the differences are only theoretical and nobody can put them into practice,” says Burgard.
“If no one comes up with something fundamentally new and the competition doesn’t shift to other disciplines, such as fast battery charging or the experience beyond driving, the next hypercars might be the last.”
dpa
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