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Nov 15, 2023

The Best Autobahn Top Speed Videos of All Time

Our speed laws here in America are generally pretty restrictive. That’s especially true when you consider that we’re the country that will sell any geek off the street a nigh-on 800 HP road car for

Our speed laws here in America are generally pretty restrictive. That’s especially true when you consider that we’re the country that will sell any geek off the street a nigh-on 800 HP road car for under $100,000 (thanks Stellantis!) and then tell the person who bought it that they’re not allowed to go over 60 mph. Ever.

It’s that kind of thinking that leads many automotive enthusiasts to dream about an uncrowded, unrestricted stretch of German Autobahn, with its gentle curves and beautifully smooth pavement. We wonder if our cars will really hit those advertised top speeds and start doing the mental math to see how much it would cost to get there.

Luckily, until we hoard enough wealth to go to Germany and drive some obscene machine for all it’s worth, we have YouTube to tide us over with its many, many Autobahn top speed run videos. These are our favorites.

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It’s a car we love to make fun of (for reasons that are apparent in this video’s thumbnail), but there’s no arguing that it’s a seriously powerful performance EV. It’s also super slippery through the air, which should make for a pretty sweet top speed and a rapidly draining battery.

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A car being well-built with quality parts is a pretty tried and true recipe, but let’s face it, that’s not how most of us operate. This car, with its AliExpress turbo manages to not only build speed with frightening ease but almost break the speedometer by going so far past the maximum listed speed that it seems like the needle might swing all the way round again.

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The R35 Nissan GT-R might be a bit of a dinosaur at this point, but it’s still an excellent base for a top speed car with astronomical power figures. On E85, this car allegedly puts out over 1,600 HP, but in this video, it’s detuned to a paltry 1,400 HP which still manages to push it to an indicated 211 mph without breaking a sweat.

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Four wheels are arguably the easier, safer way to hit peak Autobahn speeds, but they’re certainly not the only way. This video shows off BMW’s much-loved S1000RR superbike with an Akrapovic exhaust hitting a GPS-indicated speed of 185 mph.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the person doing this is a whole lot braver than I’ve ever been on a motorcycle.

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They say that money can’t buy taste, and that’s certainly true with this highly modified BMW E60 M5. What it does appear to buy, however, is speed and a lot of it. The V10-powered E60 already sounded fairly maniacal in stock form, but this thing is a 700 horses of a different color, if you get my meaning.

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A V8 with a flat-plane crankshaft is a wonderous thing, and while they were long the sole province of European manufacturers like Ferrari, eventually Ford decided to get in on the fun with the unhinged 5.2-liter Voodoo engine in the Shelby GT350. That engine produces one of automobilia’s greatest ever engine notes and hearing it get wound all the way out is truly a thing of beauty.

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A big turbo 2JZ is a wonderful thing, and this borderline-stupid Supra is a more wonderful thing than most. It looks like a total handful to drive — so much so that I’d call it dangerous and irresponsible — and that just makes me love it even more. Also, don’t get me started on the sound. Just turn your headphones up for this one.

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You didn’t think I was going to do this whole list and not put a 911 on it, did you? This one has been tuned to a reliable 1,400 HP by German firm 9ff. When I say reliably, the owner says this one has done over 30,000 miles without issue and that’s impressive as hell. This car is able to hit a mind-boggling 211 mph with what seems like essentially no effort at all, which is more impressive still.

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The 2005-06 Ford GT remains one of the best (and best looking) cars that America has ever produced and the fact that it comes from such a simple recipe makes it even cooler. Just take the engine out the Ford Lightning truck, throw it in a low, aluminum-framed sports car body, add a six-speed manual and let it rip. These things are pretty rare to see, so seeing one going apeshit on the Autobahn feels pretty special, even through a computer screen.

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It’s an 800-plus horsepower naturally aspirated V12 that revs to 9,000 rpm. Of course you’re going to want to hear it going flat out, particularly since its already violently delightful engine note is now being piped through a Novitec exhaust system. The owner of this car gets bonus points for leaving it full of change and trash and for setting off the gorgeous wine-colored exterior with a hideous clashing yellow-accented interior. Total power move.

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The Bugatti Chiron is a car that was almost purpose-built for this kind of thing. With a quad-turbocharged 1,600 horsepower W16 and enough cooling to make Pompeii chill out, there’s almost nothing that will keep up with a Chiron that’s been completely let off the leash. The way this thing builds speed is absolutely unreal.

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