When Gordon Murray decided to build the best car in the world, he was not looking for compromises—he was seeking distilled perfection. The McLaren F1 is exactly that: an engineered work of art that left everything else moving in the 1990s in its dust. It makes anyone who sits behind the wheel feel like the story’s leading character, with the driver’s seat planted in the center and a pair of seats behind it for two slender, lucky passengers. And if we are going to go over the top, how about pioneering use of a full carbon-fiber chassis, a naturally aspirated (non-turbocharged) 6.1-liter BMW V12 producing 627 hp, and a gold-lined engine bay to keep the heat from melting the chassis?
All this delivered a top speed of 386 km/h—a record still unbeaten for a naturally aspirated car. Its price is around $20 million.
