The 10 Quickest 0-60 Cars That You Can Buy

Owning a car that can hit 230 mph or more is only useful if you own a really, really long stretch of private road, or have some serious insecurity issues. On the other hand, owning a car that can hit 60 mph in under three seconds is a safety feature, since you can merge onto any freeway with even the slightest of gaps. We took a look at the 10 cars with the lowest 0-60 times in stock form—in other words, we're excluding all those one-off, 2,000 hp tuner cars out there—and there were a few surprises...

The most traditional supercar on this list makes it partially because of the brute force of a 700 hp V12, and partially because of the fantastic grip of all-wheel drive. Just...don't be an idiot and drive one in London.

The BAC Mono is a single-seater with 280 hp that weighs less than 1,200 pounds, so you shouldn't really be surprised that in the time it's taken you to read this sentence, a driver can hit 60 mph, stop, and get out of the car.

There are nearly 1,300 twin-turbocharged reasons why the SSC is so quick in a straight line, and one somewhat humorous reason why it's called an SSC: Shelby SuperCars founder Jerod Shelby grew tired of everyone asking him if he was related to that otherShelby.

The most impressive achievement that the Nissan GT-R can lay claim to isn't neck-snapping acceleration; it's that the car is so technologically proficient it essentially does the driving for you. Adjust the settings just right and it'll give you easy and repeatable figures all day long...unless you break it.

The guys over at Road & Track spent an entire day trying to break this car by launching it as hard as they could off the line. Sixty-one launches later, the car had hit 2.6s numerous times, and was still raring to go.

It's virtually impossible to not fall in love with the McLaren P1 for its sexy, evil looks and its legitimately absurd performance figures. It's also hard not to feel incredibly sorry for a car that will forever live in the shadow of its all-conquering F1 predecessor.

The phrase "race car for the road" is a very tired cliche, but in this instance it's fairly applicable. And 575 hp in a car made by ex-McLaren guys out of carbon fiber and various other bits of unobtanium help it hit 60 mph in just 2.5s, after which you might want to hit the brakes. This is the car Jeremy Clarkson was afraid to drive.

What? Did you somehow expect a Veyron not to make this list?

The Atom is essentially a street legal kart to begin with, and on a road course the V8 version might very well be slower than the supercharged, four cylinder version, but in a straight line, a V8 pushing essentially two seats and some steel tubing is very, very quick.

All-wheel drive and just under 900 hp is a wonderful thing, especially when all that power is supported by a hybrid system that boosts torque. Sure, the car costs nearly $1,000 per horsepower, but you're all but guaranteed to beat any car off the factory floor.

Aaron Miller is the Rides editor for Supercompressor. He's old enough to remember when a 4.9s 0-60 time was considered world class acceleration.