Amongst the world's most prestigious automakers, a fiercely competitive battle rages for most exotic, fastest, expensive and exclusive production super cars. Names such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Pagani, compete with the likes of Porsche, Saleen, Koenigsegg, and Maserati. They are names which provoke respect and enduring images of luxury, exotic materials and ridiculous exclusivity, since price tags can range in excess of one million dollars.

We see these cars on the race track and they are driven by consummate professionals whose names seem equally as exotic as the vehicles themselves. And you get what you pay for with these obscenely quick cars, many of which are just as comfortable on a race track, than on the road. All of these manufacturers have produced cars which reach in excess of 200 miles an hour, but in the last six or seven years, such speeds and the limits of physics have been challenged. There are currently maybe a dozen manufacturers whose vehicles are the fastest most prestigious in the luxury sports car market and breach the 240 mile an hour mark.

In the early 1990's, two manufacturers smashed the 200 mile an hour barrier to become the world's fastest cars. It began with the Jaguar XJ220, a car in which ex-Formula One driver Martin Brundle broke the production car speed record in, with a top speed of around 217mph. Unfortunately, the car was a marketing disaster for Jaguar, who in the face of a recession and poorly handled delivery on promised specifications, failed to sell large quantities of the vaunted vehicle. Worse still, a new comer put the 217mph top speed in the shade dominating the decade as one of the fastest most adventurous automotive engineering feats, even by today's standards. The car was the McLaren F1.

The Mclaren is still one of the most revered super cars around today, well over ten years since its release in the early 90's. Designed by Gordon Murray to be the ultimate super car, it features a custom built normally aspirated BMW V12 engine, which produced an astonishing road legal 630bhp and one slightly modified car was pushed to a top speed of around 240 miles an hour. No expense was spared it its development, where extensive use of carbon fiber was used to build the car, keeping the weight to a mere 1140kg and giving it approximately 550hp per ton. Real gold was used to shield the engine cover from excessive heat and an inboard modem was used to conduct remote diagnostic tests on the vehicle. One

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