Here’s your chance to admire these incredibly rare sports cars whose owners probably never take them out on the road.
There are two types of automakers in the world. On one hand, some automakers build cars for the masses. These include the likes of Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, and others. These brands have perfected the art of mass production, which is why their models appear on the list of best-selling vehicles.
On the other hand, there are manufacturers who produce vehicles in limited numbers, sometimes even in single-digit numbers. There are many reasons why automakers do this – maybe the car takes a long time to build, or maybe it's so expensive that they only expect a few people to afford it, to maintain collectibility, or as a marketing strategy. This article explores ten of the rarest sports cars that you'll likely never see in real life.
Let's kick off with one of the coolest special edition Lamborghini's ever – the Veneno. Based on the awesome Aventador, the Veneno is a crazy model Lamborghini built in 2013 to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Looking at the Veneno, it's hard to tell that it's an Aventador underneath as it has a new bodywork with vents and creases everywhere to boost aerodynamics. Lamborghini also enlarged the Veneno's air intakes and modified its exhaust system, allowing its 6.5-liter V12 engine to make 740 hp.
Bristol may not be as famous or popular as the likes of Aston Martin, Jaguar, and McLaren, but it's still one of the best British automakers of all time. One car that shows how great Bristol is has to be the Fighter.
Introduced in the early 2000s, the Fighter was supposed to be Bristol's launchpad into the 21st century. The Fighter had a gorgeous design featuring eye-catching gullwing doors and the power to match, coming from its massive 8.3-liter V10 engine.
Gumpert will always be remembered for building the insane Apollo in the mid-2000s before going out of business several years later. Thankfully, a Hong Kong company noticed Gumpert's potential and revived the company before renaming it to Apollo Automobil.
In 2019, the new company unveiled its first-ever car – the insane Intensa Emozione. The Intensa Emozione was developed to compete with the best supercars available today, which explains its fantastic design featuring all kinds of aerodynamic elements, powerful V12 engine under the hood, and low production numbers.
In the late '80s, several ex-Lamborghini employees joined forces and decided to develop the ultimate supercar that didn't have to adhere to any of the restrictive rules they had to follow at Lamborghini. The result was the Cizeta V16T, and although most gearheads have never heard of it, it was pretty awesome.
For one, the V16T was designed by the renowned Marcello Gandini – the man responsible for some of the best-looking Italian sports cars, including Lamborghinis. The V16T also had a revolutionary 6.0-liter V16 engine with tons of power to play with.
If you're an avid fan of the Fast and Furious franchise, there's a good chance you know about this rare Middle Eastern hypercar – the Lykan Hypersport. The Hypersport was featured in one of the greatest movie scenes ever, as it's the car that Dominic Toretto used when jumping from one skyscraper to another.
The Hypersport was built by a little-known Middle Eastern automaker known as W Motors in collaboration with Italian engineers. It was powered by a twin-turbo six-cylinder engine developing 780 hp, giving it a sub-three-second 0-60 time.
When Horacio Pagani established Pagani in the early '90s, he wanted to build the best supercars. Less than a decade later, Pagani's dream was fulfilled when the company introduced its first model – the Zonda.
The Zonda's insane styling, luxurious interior, and mighty Mercedes-Benz V12 made it a huge hit, which is why it stayed in production for more than a decade. To give the Zonda a fitting send-off, Pagani produced only five examples of a special model known as the Zonda Revolucion and sold each for $2.8 million.
If there's one thing you can always expect from Mercedes-Benz, it's motorsports dominance. Mercedes-Benz has built some of the greatest race cars ever made. One of them is the 300 SLR that won the 1955 Mille Miglia with the renowned Stirling Moss behind the wheel.
Mercedes-Benz built just two examples of the 300 SLR known as the Uhlenhaut-Coupe. One of the cars is in the Mercedes-Benz museum while another broke the record for the most expensive car ever sold when someone paid an astonishing $142 million.
The iconic Shelby Cobra 427 was one of the fastest cars of the '60s. However, Carroll Shelby didn't feel like the Cobra was fast enough to be his personal car, so he built the crazy Cobra Super Snake.
Shelby made a few changes to the Super Snake's engine, boosting its power output to a crazy 825 hp. Shelby built two Cobra Super Snakes – one for himself and another for his friend Bill Cosby. However, Cosby soon returned his as it was too scary for him to drive. Only one Shelby Super Snake remains today, and it sold for an astounding $5.5 million at a 2021 Barrett Jackson auction.
In 1969, Chevy offered a special package for the popular Corvette that was supposed to turn it into an absolute beast. Dubbed the ZL1, this optional package was almost $5,000 more expensive than the base Corvette of the day, which explains why only 2 examples were built.
The 1969 ZL1 ended up being one of the best Corvette models ever. Equipped with an all-aluminum 7.0-liter V8 generating well over the official 430 hp, the ZL1 was insanely quick.
It doesn't get rarer than the Maybach Exelero, as only one was ever built. The Exelero is an insane car that Maybach built for a German tire company, which needed a specially built car to test its new high-performance tires.
The car needed to be extremely fast to perform the test properly, which is why Maybach equipped the Exelero with a 5.9-liter twin-turbo V12 dishing out 690 hp. The Exelero could reportedly hit a top speed of 218 mph, which was crazy fast at the time.
Martin is a seasoned content creator who has been writing about cars for over a decade, and has been in love with them for even longer. Growing up, Martin was surrounded by gearheads who instilled a deep love and understanding for cars in him at a young age. He loves to learn and write about all the developments happening in the auto industry – especially in the EV space. When he’s not writing about cars, he likes to spend quality time with his wife, kids, and fur baby.
