The best hypercars - driven, rated and ranked

Meet the most potent AMG car ever built. The Mercedes-AMG One is the brand's hardcore yet elegant coupe. It partners a 1.6-litre V6 grand prix engine to four electric motors, for a total output of 1049bhp. 

Engineered in part in Brixworth by powertrain specialists from the brand's F1 team, it's the brand's fastest production car ever, overtaking the 214mph Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR that went on sale 25 years ago. 

This follows the famous Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, which was also built in the UK, at Woking, between 2003 and 2009. 

Power stands at 566bhp at 9000rpm - 2000rpm shy of the redline - while top speed stands at 219mph. It'll also hit 0-62mph in 2.9sec.

Its technology is really rather staggering. Its four electric motors come from recent Mercedes-AMG Grand Prix racers. Two are positioned between the turbocharger and the electric compressor, while the remaining duo are integrated into the front axle.

Want one? Unfortunately, all 275 cars have been sold for £2.2 million apiece. 

When the Bugatti Chiron launched, it was the crown jewel for Volkswagen Group's trophy brand. Since then, Bugatti has been taken over by Rimac, but its history remains the same. 

Bugatti made history when it gave us the fastest production car in the world in 2005. The W16-engined, 987bhp, four-wheel-drive Veyron broke through the 250mph barrier. But it couldn't and wouldn't be regarded as the ultimate performance car forever.

Enter in 2016 the Chiron. Where the Veyron used aluminium spaceframe construction, the Chiron has a lighter carbon fibre monocoque.

Where the Veyron stopped short of 1200bhp in its final form, the Chiron ups that to nearly 1500bhp. And where the Veyron left Bugatti's top speed yardstick at 268mph, the Chiron has, in 1578bhp Super Sport form, taken what has become an increasingly highly contested world production car speed record up beyond the 300mph marker, where it currently rests at 304.7mph.

And if you want a hypercar to make record speeds so easy to achieve, this is the one for you. Bugatti's more fiercely blown 16-cylinder engine certainly has a bit of turbo lag to haul through and isn't the sweetest-sounding of leviathan lumps – more departing hovercraft or express train than a car. But when it starts to surge, it knows absolutely no moderation.

The car's ride is firm and its handling perhaps just a tiny bit underwhelming. But making such incredible speed as attainable as the Chiron makes it remains a towering achievement. It's utterly remarkable for being so unremarkable.

On paper, the Pagani Utopia has all the hallmarks of an all-time great. 

It's powered by a 6.0-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine sourced from Mercedes-AMG, pumping out 864bhp and 809lb ft, which is 58bhp more than the most powerful variant of its predecessor, the Huayra. 

All that power is managed by a seven-speed manual gearbox. All that, and it weighs just 1280kg - only 100-ish kilos more than a Mazda MX-5.

Its interior is typically glamorous, with quality analogue dials, milled switches and ergonomics, plus a modern steering wheel milled from one solid aluminium block. 

The Utopia is a dream car for many, but as with all of the best hypercars, there's a catch. 

Like all Paganis, the Utopia is ultra-exclusive. Just 99 examples of the coupe will be built, and all of them have already been sold. But there are still convertible and track-only variants to come...

With a 1876bhp on tap, true hypercar pace was never going to be a problem for the Pininfarina Battista, even when you consider that this carbon fibre-hulled machine tips the scales at a not inconsiderable 2200kg.

The Battista was one of the first of an all-new generation of high-performance electric cars with its eyes firmly focused on a future where the internal combustion engine is put out to pasture.

It's built on a rolling chassis co-developed with Rimac (and used for the Nevera), but it was developed in-house and uses its own drive modes and dynamic performance.

The car's raw statistics certainly make for startling reading, with a 0-62mph taking less than 2sec and 186mph coming up after only 12sec – the sort of acceleration that had our very own Matt Prior giggling like a schoolboy when he sampled it.

Yet the Battista blends this extraordinarily explosive turn of speed with genuine driver engagement. Up to 1206bhp is developed by the two rear motors (there are another pair for the front wheels), which means that on track it's extremely throttle-adjustable, allowing you to exit corners at all angles of attack.

The steering is also slick and positive, while on the road it just about lives up to the Pininfarina brand's claimed GT credentials, with effortless performance, a claimed 311-mile range and adaptive dampers that serves up a controlled ride. It is a bit noisy mind, with the carbon fibre structure transmitting to many clonks and thuds from the suspension.

Yet overall, there's lots to like here, the Battista proving to be a curiously compelling device. But then so it should be with a price that hovers around £2 million.

If you were in any doubt about which way the high-performance wind was blowing, then the appearance of two EVs in our hypercar top 10 should leave you in no doubt.

We love high-revving, noisy, fast and dramatic combustion-engined machines, but the appeal of instant, walloping, vectored-per-corner torque isn’t hard to deny - and the Lotus Evija serves that up in spades.

So far our man Mike Duff has only driven the Norfolk firm’s fast flagship in prototype form around Lotus's own test track at Hethel, but the initial impressions are promising.

Electric or not, this car's key vital statistics leave nothing to chance. Its 70kWh drive battery and a quartet of electric motors make it weigh some 1700kg; but it also develops some 2000 metric horsepower at peak, runs on Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo R tyres and is claimed to be capable of 0-186mph in just 9sec (more than 4sec quicker than Bugatti's sensational Chiron can do it).

Duff's prototype drive revealed a car that struggles to feel dramatic when launching from low speeds, but one that piles on speed beyond three-figures with an unrelenting potency, and whose handling feels as balanced and poised as you would expect of a Lotus, despite its four-wheel-drive layout. Promising signs.

Ferrari's XX badge is reserved for its special series models: the best of the best. The badge is so exclusive that it's believed Ferrari has produced fewer than 100 X-branded cars in total, which were for its wealthiest and most favoured clients.

The SF90, Ferrari's powerful hybrid hypercar is the badge's latest recipient, and things are a little different this time around.

It's the first ever road-legal XX model, and Ferrari will build 1400 of them, outnumbering the existing XX contingent by 15 to one. 

So, what's changed over the standard car? The SF90 XX gets some bespoke aerodynamic enhancements that bolster handling.

Its powertrain has also been uprated. Its 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine, mated to three electric motors, gets an additional 30bhp for a total of 1016bhp. 

It might not quite be an XX model as we historically know them to be, but the SF90 XX is a brilliant road car with brilliant comfort, eye-watering performance and more aggressive looks.

In just over a decade, the Rimac has grown from a garage into a company that's now partly owned by Porsche and planning the future of Bugatti.

The crowning achievement of the young Rimac empire is the Nevera, which is the follow-up to the Concept One and C_Two show cars, the former having arguably kick-started the electric hypercar trend with its 1073bhp output and £670,000 asking price when it debuted in 2017.

Only 150 examples of the Nevera will be made, and its appeal has only been enhanced by many by its recent record-breaking EV top speed run when it topped 256mph.

The car is built around a composite tub, and there's an electric motor for each wheel, with independent single-speed gearboxes at the front and two two-speed dual-clutch 'boxes for the back axle.

All this means the Nevera boasts 1888bhp and a mountainous 1696lb ft, which allows it to hit 0-62mph in just 1.95sec with a top speed of 258bhp. Its 120kWh battery also allows for up to 340 miles of range. 

With double-wishbone suspension, torque vectoring, and the potential for level four autonomous driving, the car has the works - and an eye-watering £2.4 million price tag to match. 

With its wild looks and brain-spinning 1177bhp power output, the Zenvo certainly packs the raw statistics to be considered a true hypercar.

Yet it's the car's unique tilting rear wing that attracts all the headlines, lifting at either end when cornering to help reduce body roll and boot grip.

Either way, this daring Danish (yes, really) machine is a fairly exciting steer, its twin-supercharged 5.8-litre V8 delivering 0-124mph in 6.8sec (around the same time as a McLaren Senna, should you ask).

It also drives the rear wheels through a motorsport-style seven-speed sequential transmission complete with straight-cut gears, which is great for reduced power loss but less so for refinement.

So far, we've driven the Zenvo only on the track, where it's undeniably fast but requires commitment and familiarity to get the best out of it, a situation not helped by fairly lifeless steering.

However, learn to trust that the trick wing is doing its thing and the TSR-S is able to generate big cornering speeds while also feeling surprisingly friendly and approachable at the limit of grip. However, it's also a very brutal and noisy experience, so while the interior is beautifully finished, there's a sense that a long-haul road trip could leave you with a serious headache.

Then there's the price, which is well north of £1 million, which is rather a lot for a car from a virtually unknown brand using a General Motors engine. Still, with five cars being made annually exclusivity is guaranteed, while the quality, performance and head-turning style means this is a hypercar that demands attention.