Supercars are the epitome of motoring performance. These cars are the platform where car manufacturers hone their skills in building cars that can go beyond the bounds of a standard sports car.
Supercars don’t come cheap and sometimes car manufactures find themselves in a financial bind after building just one unit. This is because most of the technology used in these cars is developed from scratch. Lister, Axiam-Mega, and Lotec are just some examples of companies that drowned in financial issues when trying to build the ultimate supercars.
Despite the risk, some companies figured out how to save an extra buck by using engines from other cars to power their cars. Engines from sports cars and muscle cars can be tuned to extract every ounce of power from them, so they can be used in supercars.
10 Bizzarrini 5300 GT
Bizzarrini was founded in the mid-1960s by world-renowned Ferrari and Alfa Romeo engineer – Giotto Bizzarrini. Giotto’s work in Ferrari and Alfa Romeo earned him the reputation as one of the best car engineers in the world.
When he founded his company, he managed to build and successfully produce one of the best supercars, the Bizzarrini 5300 GT before closing the doors in 1969. The Bizzarrini 5300GT or as it was sold in other countries outside Italy, the Strada, was a two-door, two-seater coupe that also came as a roadster. This low riding car was powered by a 5.4-liter Chevrolet 327 V8 engine that pushed 385 horsepower in the road trim and up to 410 horsepower in the track trim.
9 De Tomaso Mangusta
At the height of his tuning career, Carroll Shelby had built a reputation for being among the best at what he did. This got him recognition from all over the world. One of the many companies that approached him to build them a car was De Tomaso. However, he turned them away and went on to build the Ford GT40.
De Tomaso moved on and took it upon themselves to build a car that could go up against any Shelby car. They built the De Tomaso Mangusta. Mangusta is Italian for Mongoose – a creature known for killing and eating cobras. This car featured a 4.7-liter Ford HiPo V8 engine that pushed 306 horsepower. One of the examples of this car was built and fitted with a Chevrolet engine and sold to GM’s vice president at the time, Bill Mitchell.
8 Hennessey Venom GT
Whenever someone mentions Hennessy, the first thing that comes to mind is 1,000 horsepower. Hennessy is a Texas-based tuning car company that focuses on turning beasts into monsters. When they are not trying to push brand names to the limit, they are building their own cars.
The Hennessey Venom GT is one of the few original builds by Hennessey. This car made its debut in 2011. This ride is built on the base of an extended Lotus Elise. It is powered by a 7.0-liter twin-turbocharged GM LSX V8 engine that pushed 1,200 horsepower to the car’s wheels. This car was built for the sole purpose of beating the Bugatti Veyron’s top speed of 267 mph, but it fell short and only hit 265.6 mph.
7 Koenigsegg CCR
Back in the day, Koenigsegg was nothing more than a wannabe hypercar powerhouse. Christian von Koenigsegg, the founder of Koenigsegg, started the company in Sweden back in 1994. Before the debut of the Koenigsegg CCR, the company had built and produced a number of cars that never really caught the attention of many petrol heads.
However, when the Koenigsegg CCR was unveiled in 2004, it put a spotlight on the Koenigsegg powerhouse as it is known today. This car was powered by a 4.7-liter modular Ford V8 engine that was mated with twin Rotrex Superchargers. The power output was 806 horsepower and 680 lb-ft of torque.
6 Monteverdi Hai 450
Rivalries in the motor world have led to the birth of some of the most amazing car creations ever made, such as the Monteverdi Hai 450. The company founder, Peter Monteverdi, was a Swiss Ferrari dealer.
After a fall out with Ferrari, Peter started his supercar company in 1963. His cars were manufactured under the brand name Monteverdi High Speed. The Monteverdi Hai 450 was one of the cars that Peter built. This car was powered by a 7.0-liter Chrysler Hemi V8 that produced 450 horsepower. However, this car never made it to production. Only two prototypes were made out of the 49 units that were promised.
5 Shelby Cobra
The Shelby Cobra is one of America’s most coveted cars in history. The Shelby Cobra started life as a British car built by AC Cars. In 1961, these cars caught Carroll Shelby’s eye, and he requested that AC Cars build him a car that could fit a V8 engine.
AC cars agreed to this but only if Shelby could provide the engine. Shelby tried his best to find the best engine he could. He went to Chevrolet, who turned him down because they didn’t want a competitor to use their engine to beat them. This rejection took him to Ford who agreed to give him an engine but under the condition that they would be the parent company of the car that would go up against the Corvette. Ford gave Shelby some small-block Windsor 221 V8 engines. After Shelby tuned these engines, they ended up pushing 425 horsepower and 480 lb-ft of torque.
4 SIN R1
SIN Cars is a Bulgarian sports car manufacturer that was founded in 2012 by racing driver and engineer, Rosen Daskalov. Three years after the company was founded, the first car rolled off the production line. This car was the SIN R1. The SIN R1 featured a carbon fiber body, an FIA approved tube chassis, and an active rear-spoiler. This Bulgarian beauty weighed in at 2,755 pounds.
This beauty came with three muscle car engine options. The first one was a 6.2-liter Chevrolet LS3 V8 engine. The second was a 7.0-liter LS7 V8, and the last and ultimate trim came equipped with a 6.2-liter Chevrolet LS9 supercharged engine that produced 650 horsepower.
3 SSC Ultimate Aero TT
SSC, or as it was once known, Shelby Supercars, built and produced the SSC Ultimate Aero TT for seven years (2006 to 2013). The Aero TT was a rear-mid engine supercar that held the Guinness World Record from 2007 to 2010 as the fastest production car with a 256.18 mph top speed.
This car went through a number of iterations before it was approved for production. During these rounds of iteration, it also went through a number of engine options, all of them Chevrolet V8 engines. The engine option that was finally used in the production car was a 6.4-liter V8 engine that was mated to a supercharger. This engine developed 1,183 horsepower.
2 TVR Griffith
Europe has over the years built some of the wildest cars that we have ever seen. TVR was a British company that spearheaded the campaign to break the bounds of what cars should be able to do. By doing this, TVR was always on the edge financially. After being resurrected in 2017, TVR showed off a new Griffith at Goodwood Revival.
This car featured a 500 horsepower 5.0-liter Ford Coyote V8 engine from a Mustang that was tuned by Cosworth and paired with a six-speed manual transmission.
1 Zenvo ST1
Zenvo is a Danish company that hit the headlines after the debut of the Zeno STI in 2009. Before the ST1 was approved for production, several prototypes were made, but they all failed because they all caught fire when their engines were pushed to the limit.
Zenvo decided to abandon the idea of building their own engines and settled for an already made muscle car engine. The Zenvo ST1 is powered by a Chevrolet LS7 V8 engine that is equipped with a supercharger and turbocharger. This engine had a 1,089 horsepower output and a top speed of 233 mph.