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More power and less weight is the perfect combination to guarantee sensational acceleration.
It doesn’t always come with a sonic boom top speed, but as you can see from our line-up of cars with the best power to weight ratios, it does mean plenty of driving enjoyment.
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17: Porsche 918 Spyder – 522bhp/tonne
There are many remarkable features of the Porsche 918 Spyder, not least its 85.6mpg average economy figure and 79g/km carbon dioxide emissions. In a car capable of 211mph and 0-60mph in 2.6 seconds, only a hybrid system could deliver this mixture of raw power and incredible efficiency.
However, the hybridised powertrain means carrying a battery pack and associated charging technology which both add significantly to the overall weight. The result is the Porsche comes in at a relitavely hefty 1675kg overall.
Even with its prodigious 875bhp from the combined petrol and electric motors, the power to weight ratio is 522bhp per tonne and that’s some way off the best. Even so, we concluded: "On the road and on a circuit, the 918 Spyder has nothing to fear from any other car in its class." High praise, indeed.
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16: BAC Mono – 525bhp/tonne
As the Mono name suggests, the British-built BAC is a single-seater, which is a good way to keep weight down when you’re making a performance-focused car.
For this machine, power comes from a 2.5-litre Ford-derived and Cosworth-tweaked engine to deliver 305bhp. Couple that to an all-up weight of 580kg and the Mono has a power to weight ratio of 525bhp per tonne.
While it may not be the biggest hitter for outright power, the BAC’s low mass helps it get off the line sharpish and record 0-60mph in 2.8 seconds. Its minimal frontal area also aids a top speed of 170mph, making it an ideal choice for the well-heeled track day junkie who can afford the £170,000 asking price.
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15: Caterham 620R – 542bhp/tonne
Caterhams have always been more about light weight than outright power, but the 620R marries both of these ideas in the ultimate expression of the Seven philosophy.
With only the bare essentials needed to make it road legal, it tips the scales at 572kg yet has a supercharged 2.0-litre Ford Duratec engine pumping out 310bhp.
The 620R is slightly misleading in that it might make you think this car promises 620bhp/tonne. However, the sums show the 620R offers 542bhp/tonne, which still isn’t half bad as it helps the Caterham sear from 0-60mph in just 2.79 seconds.
On top of that, the £51,990 620R can carry on to 155mph to make it the fastest car ever built by Caterham.
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14: Bugatti Veyron Super Sport – 644bhp/tonne
The Bugatti Veyron is a number generator like few other cars and the Super Sport ups the ante with a further 198bhp over a regular model. The result is 1184bhp in a car weighing 1838kg, or about the same as the average luxury saloon, just with four times the power.
As a result, the Super Sport has a power to weight ratio of 644bhp per tonne.
All of this enabled the Super Sport to achieve the remarkable top speed of 268mph and 0-60mph in 2.5 seconds. Driven flat out, it would consume 100-litres of fuel in less than eight minutes and cover approximately 35 miles in the process.
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13: Pagani Huayra BC – 648bhp/tonne
The standard Pagani Huayra, if you can call it such a thing, would have been an impressive performer in this category but the BC model sheds 132kg.
As well as that advantage, the BC gains an extra 80bhp, which isn’t so much when it comes to overall performance but every little helps for power-to-weight ratio.
The result of Pagani’s weight reduction for the BC is a ratio of 648bhp per tonne. That’s achieved by an obsessional level of attention to detail, such as the titanium exhaust that weighs only 2.9kg compared to the standard model’s 10kg.
Or the forged alloy wheels that are 9kg lighter and suspension wishbones made from aero-grade alloy to tip the scales at 25% less than the normal Huarya’s. Pagani also pared back production, so only 20 BC models were built.
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12: McLaren P1 GTR – 685bhp/tonne
In its search for the ultimate P1, McLaren upped the GTR’s hybrid power to 986bhp and shaved off 50kg from its overall weight. That means a power to weight ratio of 685bhp per tonne, which is mightily impressive in its own right, yet there’s plenty more to wonder at with this car.
For starters, the GTR is strictly a track machine and not road legal like its less extreme sister model. This allows the GTR to run with more aggressive aero assistance to sucker it to the road surface and make full use of its race-spec tyres.
Freed from concerns about varying road conditions and rain, the GTR makes the most of every facet of its engineering, as you hope for in a car costing £1.1 million if you were lucky enough to be offered one from the factory.
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11: Shelby Cobra Super Snake – 692bhp/tonne
In 1966, nothing could touch the Shelby Cobra Super Snake for its power to weight ratio of 692bhp per tonne A 7.0-litre V8 engine tuned to 800bhp was the stuff of dreams and the 200mph top speed was unheard of outside of racing at Le Mans.
Yet the Super Snake earned Shelby all of the attention, promotion and reputation he desired. Job done.
The only problem was the Super Snake was near undriveable. So much power in a lightweight car made it a handful at any speed. Only two were made, one for Shelby and the other for comedian Bill Cosby who handed his back. Shelby sold the second car on to a man called Tony Maxey, who drove it off a cliff when the throttle jammed open; he died a few days later.
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10: Ferrari LaFerrari – 756bhp/tonne
When measured against its key contemporary rivals, the McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder, Ferrari’s LaFerrari has them both dusted on power to weight.
The Italian’s figure of 756bhp per tonne is comfortably ahead of the other two and that’s all thanks to its lower mass. Pressing down on the scales with 1255kg, the Ferrari is some 420kg lighter than the German and 145kg less than the Brit in GTR spec.
The LaFerrari’s 950bhp electric and 6.3-litre V12 combo didn’t bother with any concessionary low-power settings, so instead you just got the full hit of power all the time. This made the Ferrari more visceral than its rivals, though not necessarily any quicker as it knocked off 0-60mph in 2.7 seconds and topped out at 217mph.
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9: Ariel Atom 500 – 909bhp/tonne
Ariel decided to build the Atom 500 because they thought it might not be possible to create this kind of car in the future. We’re glad they did because the 500’s 3.0-litre V8 engine, which is essentially two Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle motors mated to a common crank, delivers 500bhp.
In the Atom that weighs a mere 550kg, this delivers a huge 909bhp per tonne power to weight ratio.
As you’d expect with that kind of balance, the Atom 500 is fast. It accelerates from rest to 60mph in 2.3 seconds and hits 100mph from a standstill in 5.4 seconds. Both of those figures are quicker than a Bugatti Veyron’s.
The only stumbling block with the Atom V8 was Ariel only built 25 of them and they cost £125,000 each new.
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8: Lotec Sirius – 937bhp/tonne
Despite its Lotec name, the Sirius was anything but low tech. It used a turbocharged 6.0-litre V12 borrowed from the Mercedes SL65 AMG and tuned up to 1200bhp.
There was also extensive use of carbonfibre to keep heft down to a reasonable 1380kg, which gave a power to weight ratio of 937bhp per tonne.
The slightly ungainly styling and £380,000 ($494,000) asking price meant there were few takers for this German supercar, even if it could hit 248mph on the autobahn. It was also claimed to cover 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds and 0-100mph in 5.9 seconds as it got into its stride.
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7: Koenigsegg One:1 – 986bhp/tonne
Koenigsegg proudly named its One:1 the world’s first megacar. Not only does that set it apart from mere hypercars and supercars, it describes the power output of this car accurately as its 5.0-litre twin-turbo V8 delivers 1341bhp when running on E85 Ethanol fuel.
Fill up with this and the One:1 has a power to weight ratio of 986bhp/tonne. Do the sums in PS and it comes to 1000Ps per tonne to justify the One:1 name that represents one horsepower per kilo.
Running on normal super unleaded, the Koenigsegg’s engine is pegged to ‘just’ 1160bhp, giving 852bhp per tonne, but it’s still no slouch. Such is its pace, Koenigsegg doesn’t bother with a 0-60mph time and instead quotes 20 seconds to go from rest to 250mph.
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6: Saleen S7 LM – 1000bhp/tonne
Saleen hits the magic 1000bhp per tonne figure bang on with its S7 Le Mans model thanks to a kerb weight of 1300kg and power of 1300bhp.
Fittingly, the price for this model was also nicely rounded at $1 million (£770,000), though only seven of the LM models were ever made.
Reaching this power to weight ratio has been a gradual process for US firm Saleen as the S7 started out in life with only 550bhp. That’s grown over the years and the only thing that has fundamentally changed with the 7.0-litre V8 engine is the addition of twin turbochargers to generate its four-figure output.
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5: Ruf 9ff GT9 Vmax – 1030bhp/tonne
Ruf has plenty of form tuning Porsches to way beyond what most drivers expect and the 9ff GT9 Vmax is the ultimate expression of this. It has a 4.2-litre flat-six lifted from a GT3 RSR race car with twin-turbos added and tuned to 1381bhp.
Carbonfibre is used for most of the Vmax’s 1340kg body, so it ends up with a power to weight ratio of 1030bhp per tonne.
As with every Ruf since the original Yellowbird, the GT9 Vmax is very fast and this Ruf can hit 272mph flat out. It also dispenses with 0-60mph in 3.0 seconds and accelerates from a standstill to 186mph in 13.0 seconds.
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4: Ultima Evo – 1073bhp/tonne
Lee Noble’s original Ultima has come a long way and rightly bears comparison with the best performance cars in the world, helped by a power to weight ratio of 1073bhp per tonne.
That’s for the top spec Evo Coupe with a 1020bhp supercharged 6.8-litre Chevrolet LS engine. This model will set you back from £95,995 ($125,000), though there are less potent alternatives in the range.
Then again, who wouldn’t want the full power Ultima when it can deal with 0-60mph in 2.3 seconds, reel in 150mph from standing start in 8.9 seconds and top out at 240mph?
All this in a car with a race-proven chassis and at a fraction of the price of most cars that come anywhere near its power to weight figure.
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3: Caparo T1 – 1074bhp/tonne
The plan was simple: build a car that delivered a Formula 1 experience but is able to be driven on the road. This was the brief for the Caparo T1 and, in part, it delivered thanks to its 535kg kerb weight and 575bhp 3.5-litre V8 that was based on a detuned Indycar motor.
Crunch the numbers and you come up with a power to weight ratio of 1074bhp per tonne.
Not quite Formula 1 levels of power to weight, then, but still more than enough to see the T1 from rest to 60mph in 2.5 seconds and standstill to 100mph in less than five seconds.
It will also cover 0-100-0mph in 7.2 seconds, so performance was never an issue with the T1. However, reliability was dubious and only a handful were ever sold.
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2: Hennessey Venom F5 – 1196bhp/tonne
Hennessey is well noted for its cars that come with massive power from their highly tuned and turbocharged V8 engines.
The Venom F5 takes this formula to a new extreme thanks to an engine packing 1600bhp in a car that sits on the scales at 1338kg. The outcome of this is a power to weight ratio of 1196bhp per tonne.
The US-based firm says the Venom F5 is good for 0-186mph in less than 10 seconds and top speed is somewhere north of 300mph. Incredible figures for a sensational car and the price is just as eye-watering as you’ll need $1.6 million (£1.23 million) to buy into this exclusive bracket.
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1: Fahlke Larea GT1 S12 – 1267bhp/tonne
German firm Fahlke is well known within racing circles and that’s where the notion of its road-legal Larea GT1 S12 came from.
One look at the S12 tells you this is a race-bred machine and that helps keep the bulk down to 980kg courtesy of greater use of carbonfibre in the S12 compared to other models from Fahlke. Consequently, the S12 offers a power to weight ratio of 1267bhp per tonne.
Power comes from a mid-mounted 7.2-litre supercharged V8 dishing out 1241bhp, though customers can specify up to 1400bhp for track-only use.
Unsurprisingly, stopwatch figures show the S12 covers 0-60mph in 2.0 seconds and can carry on until 269mph. And all yours from €980,000 (£843,000).
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