5. LAMBORGHINI MIURA

Up until the Miura, almost every sports car had been front engine/rear drive. And though De Tomaso had produced a mid-engine car already, the Miura popularized the idea, and became the trend setter for an entirely new age in high performance cars. By today’s standards, the Miura is a beast, just as tall and wide and long as a 599, but its dimensions house its little secret. You see, mid-engine cars weren’t always, and sometimes, still aren’t, very pretty to look at. Something about the proportions of a cabin-forward design just isn’t as intuitively pleasing to the eye as the aesthetic of a traditional FR car. Look at the Enzo, the Ford GT, the Audi R8, the Countach, the Carrera GT, and the Murcielago: they are all attractive, and exotic, and moving, but they aren’t exactly what we would call pretty. But the Miura, the Miura is pretty, and it is still one of the most significant cars ever produced.

4. BUGATTI VEYRON

What can be said about this car that hasn’t been said thousands of times, and sometimes even cleverly? The Veyron brushes shoulders with the all-time greats not because of what it does, but how it does it. Top speed crowns are momentary honors inevitably passed on to the next generation. Already, the SSC Ultimate Aero and others have surpassed its 253mph top speed, but none have managed to improve on the ease with which the Veyron achieves its stupendous mark. It is composed at any speed, and it isn’t a stripped down street legal race car either, but includes all the amenities deserving of a 1.2 million dollar car. The Veyron has done what many said couldn’t, or even shouldn’t, be done–make a road worthy luxury grand-tourer capable of breaking the speed limit nearly four times over without getting too excited.

3. FERRARI 250 GTO

You are looking not only at the best Ferrari of all time, but in some minds, the best sports car of all time period. Certainly, the former assertion would seem enough evidence to grant the latter. And certainly, this car is well deserving of its title as the Most Beautiful Car ever built, as its FR proportions are definitely easier on the eyes than any modern MR car. So why is it sitting here at number 3? Because an all-time list must take into account the breadth of a car’s effect, and while in its day, and in its place, the journalistic community could make a good case for placing it at number one, an all time list shouldn’t be dominated by a car that needs such an explanation. Both in terms of ground breaking performance and overarching effect on the population at large, the 250 GTO just doesn’t stack up against the final two cars on our list.

2. MCLAREN F1

The McLaren F1 is still quite possibly the greatest road going car of all time. It may have abdicated its top speed crown of 240.1mph, but it did so without the help of forced induction, making it the fastest Naturally Aspirated road car to this day. The F1 has a unique three seat design, with the driver’s seat positioned in the middle, making entry and exit a bit of a pain, but it optimizes the driving experience, which is the F1′s most brilliant trait. There are few cars that can rival the F1′s ability to combine street car with race car, and still fewer do so in such a mature but still sexy exterior. But while the F1 excels in the performance category, its effect is mostly aspirational, inspiring future high-end exotics and our own lowly middle class visions of grandeur. Getting an F1 is like applying for public office: you need money, charisma, and clout, and even then, there aren’t always enough spots to go around. To an enthusiast, the F1 may be number 1, but in the whole scheme of things, it’s simply too exclusive.

1. PORSCHE 911

It’s hard to believe that the top of this list could be occupied by a car with any ties to the VW Beetle, but alas, it is, and deservedly so. The 911 is the second oldest nameplate in continuous production (behind the Corvette) and it is the oldest living example of the air (now liquid) cooled longitudinally mounted rear engine technology pioneered by Porsche’s founder. Physics dictates that putting the engine in the rear of the car is quite possibly the worst place to put it as it causes the car to violently oversteer into corners and makes stability an issue. Nonetheless, the story of the 911 is one of engineers progressively tweaking a car to succeed in spite of itself. When it comes to owning a supercar you can actually drive every day, the 911 is still the best game in town. The car exudes quality, restraint, and German car love and our own car lust. And it’s a car you can see on the street, and a car it’s okay to dream of owning, because used models are always available in a wide range of prices. It is fast, exotic, expensive, and delivers the sort of unadulterated joy of driving one could only expect from the best sports car ever made. And that is why the 911 rocks.