Our Favourite Extreme Machines

Cars

Sinclair C5

The C5 was stupid-looking, probably dangerous, but strangely prescient and now kind of retro and cool. Clive Sinclair’s doomed project was the product of the extreme entrepreneurialism of the early eighties.

The Buckeye Bullet

A student-constructed electric vehicle that recently set a land speed record at 307 MPH

The ‘Tajima Monster’

This 897-horsepower twin-turbocharged Suzuki SX4 negotiated the 12.42 mile Pikes Peak course in 10 minutes and 11.49 seconds.

McLaren F1

The long-time holder of the fastest-car title, engine bay lined with gold makes it the most bling too

Maybach 62

The biggest car currently on sale, but a sales disaster for parent Mercedes-Benz: crass, ugly and overly bling. Also the heaviest.

Smart ForTwo:

Currently the shortest car on sale but Gordon Murray’s new T25 city car will be 30cm shorter and have an extra perch

Caparo T1:

You’d struggle to call it a car, but it does wear number plates and has a power-to-weight ratio that blitzes anything else you can buy with 575bhp in a body weighing less than half a tonne

Bugatti Veyron Super Sports

Not again! But we didn’t mention that alongside all its other records, it’s also the most expensive and least-efficient car you can currently buy?

Compiled by Michael Fordham & Ben Oliver

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