Fastest street-legal cars of the decade

As we take a look at the past decade, you can see just how quickly we progressed to finally breaking the 300 mph barrier in a production car.
Automakers like Koenigsegg, Hennessey, Pagani, Zenvo, and Noble also made the list.
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The following is a transcript of the video.

Aj Caldwell: It's a great time to be a car enthusiast. Modern times have brought us the mind-boggling performance of electric vehicles and some updates to some old favorites. Speed records have been broken again and again as new technology fuels automakers' competition for the title of fastest car. So, as the 2010s near an end, here are the 10 fastest street-legal cars of the past decade.

Coming in at the No. 10 spot is a car brand most people haven't heard of. Noble is a boutique British automaker known to engineer some real track beast. The Noble M600 soars to a top speed of 225 mph from a 650-horsepower Yamaha V8 engine.

Pagani is a popular car brand among high-end collectors. Its offerings are designed to be true pieces of art on wheels. But the Huayra doesn't just look good; it's seriously fast. Engineers tuned a turbocharged Mercedes AMG V12 to push out 700 horses, consequently giving the Huayra a staggering top speed of 230 mph.

Zenvo didn't hit the car scene until 2008 but gained a lot of attention by producing a 1,163-horsepower prototype right out the gate. A few years later, that prototype became the Zenvo TS1. Its 5.8-liter V8 with twin superchargers propel it to 233 mph.

At No. 7 on the list, we have our first hybrid. Swedish automaker Koenigsegg has produced some of the most impressive supercars since it started in 1994, one of them being the Regera. The most eye-catching feature is Autoskin, but the Regera is still all about performance. It combines three electric motors with the 5-liter twin-turbo V8 to make 1,500 horsepower, pushing the Regera to an electronically limited top speed of 250 mph.

Not to be confused with the previously mentioned Regera is another entry from Koenigsegg, the Agera R. It's a limited-run supercar with multiple acceleration records, one of them being the fastest 0-to-200 mph time, at 17.68 seconds. The 1,140-horsepower engine runs on biofuel and pushes the car to 260 mph.

Bugatti is one of the most recognizable supercar brands, and for good reason. Its cars not only push the limits of automobiles, but they're also beautifully handcrafted machines. Its famous W16 engine is a quad-turbocharged monster, making 1,500 horsepower. Placed inside the Chiron, it launches the supercar to 261 mph. But there's plenty more power after that, as it's capped with an electronic limiter.

Beating Bugatti is another Bugatti. The Veyron Super Sport 16.4 set the world record for fastest production car with a top speed of 267.857 mph, though the production version was electronically limited to 258 mph. The world record shows just how powerful its 1,200-horsepower engine really is.

Hennessey Performance Engineering is a car-tuning company that specializes in modifying sports cars and supercars. But the Venom GT is a car of its own. Though it's based off the Lotus Exige platform, the engineering is all Hennessey. The Venom GT broke Bugatti's world record in 2014 with a top speed of 270.49 mph.

Building off the success of the Agera R, Koenigsegg introduced the Agera RS in 2017. It went on to set the world record for fastest production car with a top speed of 277.87 mph. Though it has the same 5-liter twin-turbocharged V8, it makes 1,350 horsepower, 210 more than its predecessor. The owners of each of the 25 Agera RS vehicles worked with Koenigsegg to personalize every detail, including color, stitching, power output, and even nicknaming the car, so no two are alike.

Taking the No. 1 spot is the Bugatti Chiron...again. This time, with a modified version that's longer, more aerodynamic, and clearly doesn't have the electronic limiter. It's still technically a pre-production prototype, but it set the world record for fastest supercar with a top speed of 304.77 mph in September of 2019. It's the first car to break the 300-mph barrier, a feat manufacturers have been trying to achieve with production cars for years.

So, there you have it. The fastest street-legal cars of the decade. The 2010s brought us 300 mph; we can only imagine what the next decade will bring. From a V8 twin-turbocharged engine, a 1,200, I...what? [laughs] Cameraman: From a V8 twin turbocharged...

Fastest street-legal cars of the decade

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