The Cars That Made The World
By "car" we are referring to passenger cars, which are defined as motor vehicles with at least four wheels, used for the transport of passengers, and comprising no more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat. Cars (or automobiles) make up approximately 74% of the total motor vehicle annual production in the world. The remaining 26%, not included in this statistics, is made up by light commercial vehicles and heavy trucks (motor vehicles with et least four wheels, used for the carriage of goods), buses, coaches and minibuses (comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat)
The Cars That Made the World
By "production" we are following the convention used by national trade organizations and referring to completely built vehicle (CBU) as opposed to assembly of completely knocked down (CKD) or semi-knocked down (SKD) sets when vehicle parts originate in another country. How many cars are produced in the world every year?
Electric cars were available in the middle of the 19th century, but fell out of favor after Henry Ford developed his Model T, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (opens in new tab). In recent years, electric cars have made a comeback, though. Around 535,000 electric cars were sold in the United States in 2021, according to CNBC (opens in new tab). This technology, like the internal combustion engine, also has a long history that is difficult to point to one inventor.
When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, the inexpensive and high quality gasoline powered car became very popular and the decline of electric cars began, according to the Department of Energy (opens in new tab). By the 1920s, gasoline had become cheaper and more readily available, and more Americans were traveling greater distances. Electric cars didn't have the range that gas-powered cars had, and electricity was still not readily available in many rural cities, making the gasoline-powered cars the automobiles of choice.
"At the beginning of the 20th Century, electric cars were very briefly more popular than internal combustion engine cars in America. However, they had very bad batteries. Electric cars are only good today because of batteries that were initially developed for laptops and camcorders," said Standage.
The wartime government made it much more difficult and costly to own and operate a car, even though many complained that the restrictions were un-American. At the least, government officials demanded that car owners use their machines thoughtfully and sparingly.
When Japan surrendered, there were roughly 26 million cars in the United States. At the dawn of the 1960s, that number had jumped to nearly 60 million. Giving birth to the suburbs, the interstate highway system, drive-in movies, and drive-through restaurants, the prevalence of the automobile in the postwar years changed American life forever.
The 24 cars on this list are all very rare and very expensive. The manufacturers of the cars listed here are well known for their high-performance, high-priced, high-end vehicles. But even companies like Lamborghini, Ferrari, and Bugatti would not have regularly priced cars listed at the exorbitant amounts listed here. No, the cars that are truly the rarest and most expensive are the cars delegated to one-offs, limited editions, special issues, and rare finds.
The '69 Corvette ZL1 had a 427 cu-in L88 engine that officially produced 430 hp, although there are several reports claiming it actually made in excess of 500 hp. Either way, the ZL-1 was the most powerful Corvette available at the time.
The Jaguar XKSS was a road-friendly version of the Jaguar D-Type race car. It was originally built in 1957 and looks somewhat like a precursor to the Jaguar E-Type. Only 16 of these cars were made over 50 years ago, out of a scheduled 25, and the final nine were built and launched in 2016, built to the exact specifications of the originals.
The car was made famous by its introduction in the film Furious 7, where a HyperSport smashes through skyscrapers. It can go from 0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds and has a top speed of 240 mph. Only seven units were produced, making it one of the rarest supercars, and it also came with a price-tag of $3.4 million, making it the third most expensive production car built to date, after the Lamborghini Veneno and the Maybach Exelero.
Several special variants of the car have been produced, including this one, the Mansory Vivere edition. While only 270 examples of the original Veyron were built, only three of these special edition cars were produced, one of which is on sale on James Edition for $3.4 million. It runs on a quad-turbocharged 8.0-liter W16 engine. The car is finished in matte white, with the exterior featuring the infamous Mansory Carbon Fiber weave, new carbon front, and rear bumpers, and a redesigned hood. The interior has also been extensively modified with custom Mansory parts, such as hand-stitched black-and-white leather upholstery that matches the exterior.
The chief designer of this car was actually Ferdinand Porsche, of a different car company you might recognize. There were originally 150 of these sports tourers produced, but only a handful have survived into the 21st century, making it one of the rarest cars in the world. A recent Gooding & Company auction in Pebble Beach had this car on its lot with an estimated price of $5-$6 million. As you can see, it is a beautiful piece of work from Porsche, one that Mercedes should be proud (and a little jealous) of.
The Ford GT40 is the original high-performance race car that was the precursor to the now-popular Ford GT supercar. The GT40 was based on the British Lola Mk6 and was powered by a series of American-made engines built solely for the car. The GT40 won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four consecutive times, from 1966 to 1969, and finished 1-2-3 in 1966. With Henry Ford II in attendance at Le Mans, the Mk II GT40 gave Ford the first Le Mans victory for an American manufacturer in 1966.
The car was named after its style, a Grand Tourer, and its overall height of 40 inches. Only 105 of these cars were produced between 1964 and 1969. They all ran on different sized V8 engines, including a 4.7-liter engine in the Mk I, a 7.0-liter FE engine in the MK II (the same engine that got them the 1-2-3 finish in 1966), a detuned, 306-hp 4.7-liter engine in Mk III, and the same engine in Mk IV as in Mk II. These cars are extremely rare and valuable these days, as a prototype GT40 was sold in 2014 for $7 million, according to Hemmings.
The Maybach Exelero is a one-off high-performance sports car made by the German manufacturer Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH, a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler. The car was unveiled in 2005. It was powered by a twin-turbo V12 engine that produced 690 horsepower, a top speed of 218 mph, and a 0-62 mph acceleration time of 4.4 seconds.
Not even European royalty was buying cars such as this during that time, so only three of the seven made were sold. The chassis alone cost $30,000 to build when it was first made. Today, six of the cars exist, and one of them was destroyed in a wreck. In 2001, Forbes reported the price-tag of this car at $10 million, though CarBuzz reported in 1987 that one had sold at auction for $9.7 million.
The McLaren F1 LM is a track-oriented version of the infamous McLaren F1. The car was built to commemorate the five McLaren F1 GTRs that competed in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans race and finished in first, third, fourth, fifth, and thirteenth place. The LM is based on the same F1 GTR, with the chassis from a standard F1. Only six of these cars were made, and five were sold. The sixth was retained by McLaren to use as the platform for developing the F1 chassis. The F1 LMs can all be identified by their Papaya orange paintjobs, a color chosen in tribute to Bruce McLaren, whose race color was the same.
Electric cars enjoyed popularity between the late 19th century and early 20th century, when electricity was among the preferred methods for automobile propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time. Advances in internal combustion technology, especially the electric starter, soon rendered this advantage moot; the greater range of gasoline cars, quicker refueling times, and growing petroleum infrastructure, along with the mass production of gasoline vehicles by companies such as the Ford Motor Company, which reduced prices of gasoline cars to less than half that of equivalent electric cars, led to a decline in the use of electric propulsion, effectively removing it from important markets such as the US by the 1930s. 1997 saw the Toyota RAV4 EV and the Nissan Altra, the first production battery electric cars to use NiMH and Li-ion batteries (instead of heavier lead acid) respectively.
Across the northern US, local mechanics experimented with a wide variety of prototypes. In the state of Iowa, for example, by 1890 Jesse O. Wells drove a steam-powered Locomobile. There were numerous experiments in electric vehicles driven by storage batteries. First users ordered the early gasoline-powered cars, including Haynes, Mason, and Duesenberg automobiles. Blacksmiths and mechanics started operating repair and gasoline stations.[38] In Springfield, Massachusetts, brothers Charles and Frank Duryea founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1893, becoming the first American automobile manufacturing company. The Autocar Company, founded in 1897, established a number of innovations still in use[39] and remains the oldest operating motor vehicle manufacturer in the US. However, it was Ransom E. Olds and his Olds Motor Vehicle Company (later known as Oldsmobile) who would dominate this era with the introduction of the Oldsmobile Curved Dash. Its production line was running in 1901. The Thomas B. Jeffery Company developed the world's second mass-produced automobile, and 1,500 Ramblers were built and sold in its first year, representing one-sixth of all existing motorcars in the US at the time.[40] Within a year, Cadillac (formed from the Henry Ford Company), Winton, and Ford were also producing cars in the thousands. In South Bend, Indiana, the Studebaker brothers, having become the world's leading manufacturers of horse-drawn vehicles, made a transition to electric automobiles in 1902, and gasoline engines in 1904. They continued to build horse-drawn vehicles until 1919.[41] 041b061a72