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#12 in Greatest Cars Ever Made
of 20 ranked entries
Lamborghini · 1966–1973
Ferruccio Lamborghini’s young engineers built the mid-engine chassis largely on their own initiative, without his direct approval, and unveiled it at the 1966 Geneva show to a reception so strong it forced the segment’s entire design language to change — every mid-engined supercar since owes something to its layout. Recorded specifics: year 1966, country Italy, power 350 hp. Panel highlighted established the mid-engine layout now standard across essentially every serious supercar built since, bertone’s body design is still widely cited as one of the most influential supercar shapes ever produced and genuinely class-leading performance for 1966, reaching roughly 275 km/h. The reservation on record is handling at the limit was demanding even by the standards of its era, with a rearward weight bias that punished mistakes.
Score breakdown
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on Greatest Cars Ever Made.
On the record
| Year | 1966 |
|---|---|
| Country | Italy |
| Power | 350 hp |
| Rating | 9.0 |
Panel verdict
What it gets right
Where it gives ground
1 appearance
From the same list
Ford · 1908–1927
Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but the moving assembly line he introduced for it in 1913 cut production time from roughly 12 hours to about 90 minutes, and the price fell from $850 to under $300 as a direct result. It put car ownership within reach of ordinary wage earners for the first time.
Porsche · introduced 1963
The rear-engine layout should not work as well as it does — engineers have spent six decades arguing the 911’s weight distribution is theoretically wrong — and yet it has remained in continuous production longer than any other sports car nameplate, evolving through eight generations while staying instantly recognisable.
Volkswagen · 1938–2003
Originally commissioned under Nazi Germany as a "people’s car," the Beetle’s post-war production under British Army oversight became one of the more improbable redemption stories in industrial history, eventually selling over 21.5 million units, a single-design production record that stood for decades.
Citroën · 1955–1975
Unveiled at the 1955 Paris Motor Show, the DS took 12,000 orders in the first fifteen minutes and looked like nothing else on the road — its hydropneumatic self-levelling suspension let it glide over rough surfaces so smoothly that Citroën demonstrated it driving on three wheels after a blowout without losing control.
Ferrari · 1962–1964
Only 36 were built, ostensibly to satisfy FIA homologation rules for GT racing, and Enzo Ferrari personally vetted buyers to keep the cars out of the hands of speculators. Original examples now regularly sell at auction for over $50 million, among the highest prices ever paid for a car.
Jaguar · 1961–1975
Enzo Ferrari reportedly called it the most beautiful car ever made when it debuted at the 1961 Geneva Motor Show, and at roughly a third of the price of comparable Italian sports cars, it briefly made genuine exotic-car performance affordable to a much wider buyer.
British Motor Corporation · 1959–2000
Alec Issigonis packed the engine transversely and mounted it over the front wheels to leave 80% of the car’s footprint for passengers and luggage, a packaging solution so effective that nearly every front-wheel-drive economy car built since has copied the basic layout.
Chevrolet · introduced 1953
Built to answer European sports cars after American GIs came home from the war having driven MGs and Jaguars overseas, the first Corvettes sold slowly with a straight-six engine until a 1955 V8 option turned it into the car it was always supposed to be.
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