Hennessey Venom GT: fastest car on Earth

Essentially a lot of power fitted into an extremely small and lightweight body, Hennessey took the 1,000-plus horsepower twin-turbo Viper engine and placed it inside a modified Lotus Exige shell. The current Guinness World Record holder for the fastest 0-300-kilometre (0-186-mile)-per- hour dash – which was achieved in under 14 seconds – and now officially the fastest production car too (having hit 435 kilometres/270 miles per hour on a NASA runway) the Hennessey Venom GT uses the lightweight shell of a more modest Lotus Exige to house the gargantuan 7.0-litre twin-turbo Viper engine. The power-to-weight ratio here is crazy: 928 kilowatts (1,244 brake horsepower) powers 1,244 kilograms (2,743 pounds), providing 746 kilowatts (1,000 horsepower) per ton. Such little weight resistance helps the Venom GT fly, while the small nature of the body means there’s simply less surface area for resistant forces to act on, so the car can cut through the air at an eye-watering pace.