These are the 50 greatest Italian cars of all time

This handsome and oft-overlooked ’60s coupe hails from a time when Fiat had designs far beyond its current emphasis on small, cheap cars. That timelessly lovely styling carries the fingerprints of two all time greats, Giorgetto Giugiaro and Marcello Gandini, and that name’s no coincidence: it was powered by Ferrari’s lovely Dino V6, a year before it debuted in an actual Dino.

If you define a hot hatchback as a small car with a hatchback body with some performance tweaks and a sporty aesthetic makeover (and really, we’re not sure how else you’d define it), then this car, launched in 1971, was the first. Not the Golf GTI, not the Renault 5 Alpine, not even the Simca 1100 ti. That makes it unquestionably worthy of a place in history, although we’d admit on the strength of that bonnet scoop alone.

When it launched in 2003, the second-generation Panda was just like the car it replaced: basic, cheap and quite merrily unconcerned with the trappings of fashion and status. Whether a stripped-back 59bhp base model, the racy 100HP version, or the surprisingly capable 4x4, there was a second-gen Panda for everyone, and all of them simply got on with the business of being a charming little car.

Launched within a couple of years of one another, the original BMW M5 and Lancia Thema 8.32 both stuffed a supercar engine into an executive saloon: the BMW had the straight-six from an M1, and the Lancia the 3.0-litre V8 from the Ferrari 308. So why isn’t the Lancia spoken about in the same reverential tones? Probably because, despite the extra cylinders, it was substantially less powerful than the BMW. And front-wheel drive. Incredibly cool, though.

Considering it’s pretty widely held to be the greatest V6 ever, Alfa Romeo’s ‘Busso’ engine didn’t have the most auspicious of starts in the forgettable Alfa 6 saloon. Thankfully, a year later, in 1980, it gained a much worthier home when it was stuffed into the Alfetta coupe to create the GTV6. How anyone could have looked at, and listened to, one of these and ended up with a BMW 6 Series instead is beyond us. Oh yeah, reliability.

In the pantheon of wedgy Italian supercars from the ’70s, the Maserati Bora tends to get a bit overlooked. Maybe it’s because it ‘only’ had eight cylinders rather than the de rigeur 12, maybe because only 564 were built across a seven year production run, and maybe because Maserati is forever cursed to live in the shadow of Ferrari. Whatever the reason, the Bora deserves better: just look at it, for a start.

We cannot reasonably explain our attraction to shooting brakes (proper ones, not just slightly swoopier estate cars. Looking at you, Mercedes). An estate car but less practical, a coupe but less stylish, they make very little rational sense. And yet, especially when they have Ferrari badges and a wailing 6.3-litre V12 up front, you still want one, don’t you?

The classic one, that is, although the modern one is lovely too. In the days before Ferrari and Lamborghini existed and Maserati only made racing cars, the 8C, in its various iterations, was the most prestigious car Italy was making. It came in many forms, but all of them were gorgeous, and all came with a thundering straight-eight soundtrack that could only have come from the 1930s.

Next to the other little family cars of its day, the Fulvia was typical Lancia: slightly overengineered, and a bit weird. It had all-round disc brakes and a forward-canted, narrow-angle V4 engine, and was front-wheel drive when rear was still the norm in this class. More to the point, though, it was very pretty, and in HF form, a performance tool that laid the foundations for Lancia’s formidable reputation in rallying.

The first mid-engined car fully developed by Maserati in nearly 50 years (the MC12, remember, was basically just a rebodied Ferrari Enzo), the MC20 was worth the wait. With its boosty, unhybridised engine, unfiltered steering and wayward approach to handling, it feels like one of the last real old-school supercars, and more importantly, a much-needed return to form for Maserati. Not even an inexplicable name-change to MCPura spoiled things.

If you’re a private detective, a job that requires a certain degree of subtlety and discretion, then you probably shouldn’t drive a Ferrari 308, despite what some ’80s TV shows would have you believe. If you’re not, though, then fill your boots: stunning to behold, good to drive (by ’70s standards) and with a gorgeous soundtrack, the 308 is legendary for far more than simply being a transportation device for Tom Selleck’s moustache.

While the Murcielago quickly killed any concerns that Lamborghini would be tamed and sanitised under its Audi ownership, there was still some trepidation that a ‘junior’ Lambo supercar – the first in over a decade – might not fulfil the lofty expectations its badge brought with it. When the Gallardo arrived, though, any doubting voices were quickly drowned out by the wail of its naturally aspirated V10, a generationally brilliant engine.

The ‘baby Ferrari’ moniker was inevitable almost as soon as the Fiat X1/9 appeared in 1972. It was low, it was wedge-shaped, it was Italian, it was mid-engined, it was… powered by a titchy 1.3-litre engine that could just about muster 74bhp. Yeah, ‘baby’ was right. Still, it weighed about as much as a doppio espresso, which meant that wringing its neck could still raise your heart rate as much as necking one.

While it’s nigh-on impossible not to mentally play the opening de-de-des of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs. Robinson’ when you see an Alfa Romeo Spider Duetto, it wouldn’t be any less special a car if it hadn’t received a boost from Hollywood. Just one look at its perfectly formed proportions, and one listen to its throaty twin-cam engine, demonstrates why it’s been a muse for so many sports cars since.

There’s enormous profit to be had in stripped-out, track-ready supercars these days (regardless of how many of their sticky tyres actually touch a racetrack in their lives), and the Ferrari 360 CS was one of the very first to demonstrate the business case. Raw, raucous and fitted with that utterly glorious 3.6-litre V8, it, along with the original Porsche 911 GT3 RS that arrived around the same time, helped shape the modern supercar business.

There’s one word that succinctly sums up the Lamborghini LM002: ridiculous. In the best possible way, we mean. Originally devised as a vehicle for the US military, what the LM002 eventually morphed into was a kind of earlier, V12-powered take on the Hummer recipe, and a forerunner to today’s wave of SUVs from supercar makers, only way, way cooler.

Sometimes, if you combine Italian and American things, you get questionable results like chicken alfredo. Sometimes, though, you get Frank Sinatra. The De Tomaso Pantera, is the Sinatra of the car world: its wedgy, Ghia-designed body and mid-engined layout brought the Italian style, and its big Ford V8 brought the American bombast and showmanship in a hugely effective transatlantic partnership.

With its baffling interior, iffy build quality and the horrid semi-auto gearbox that blighted early cars, the fifth generation Maserati Quattroporte was unquestionably flawed. But it was glorious to drive, it oozed restrained style from every angle, and the noise made by its Ferrari V8 would make your hairs not just stand on end, but try to break free of your body altogether. There have been plenty of more well-rounded luxury saloons, but perhaps none as cool.

With the earliest versions met with slightly muted praise, it seemed as though Lamborghini might have been experiencing difficult second album syndrome with the replacement for the Gallardo. Subsequent iterations unlocked the magic, though, and as more and more of its rivals downsized and adopted turbocharging, the appeal of its howling V10 only grew further. By the time the STO arrived, we were undoubtedly dealing with a supercar hall-of-famer.

An aluminium-bodied homologation special version of the almost unreasonably gorgeous 105-series Alfa coupe family, the Giulia Sprint GTA makes do with just 113bhp from its rorty little twin-cam engine. With that balanced rear-wheel drive chassis and just 745kg to move around, though, it’s a perfect demonstration of the less-is-more philosophy the car world could so desperately use more of these days. And just to reiterate: look at it.

Considering Maserati has since used the Italian language to its great advantage with names like Quattroporte and GranTurismo, it’s a real shame the A6GCS/53 was saddled with such a functional, uninspiring moniker. Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci had called the Mona Lisa ‘Portrait, oil on poplar, 1503-1506’. Still, it may not have a very nice name to say, but goodness, it’s a lovely car to look at and listen to.

The Murcielago was living, breathing, firespitting proof that Lamborghini would not be tamed as part of the Volkswagen Group. One of the most brooding, brutalist supercar silhouettes of the 2000s paired with one last outing for Lambo’s original V12 engine for a car that was unapologetically a Lamborghini, and frankly would have been even if Unilever had owned the company.

Maybe the Aventador has only landed this far down the rankings versus other V12 Lambos because it’s not quite old enough to be a classic, but not new enough for recency bias to kick in. Either way, it’s everything you’d hope for from the last non-hybrid flagship the company will likely build: noisy, pointy, brightly coloured and with a fondness for shooting blue flames out of its bum. Never change, Lambo. Never change.

The GT SWB may not quite be the most valuable or rarest of the gazillion Ferrari 250 derivatives, but we’d venture that it is the prettiest. Its Pininfarina bodywork is a lesson in restraint, proportion and elegance that few other cars, then or now, could compete with. And of course, the hallowed Colombo V12 under that bonnet ensures that there’s plenty of go to complement the show.

Although it was based on a platform dating back to 1973 and that lasted well into the 1990s, few other cars are as synonymous with a moment in time as the Ferrari Testarossa is with the mid 1980s. Every little bit of it is designed to go hand in hand with money-hungry politics, excellent synthpop and improbable haircuts. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why it still feels like such a relevant car in the 2020s.

If you’re going to stick ‘Superfast’ in your car’s name, you’d better be sure you can back it up. 789bhp, 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds and 211mph should do the trick. It’s not just the speed that earns the 812 a spot on this list, though, but the way it blends continent-crossing GT sensibilities with genuine supercar handling and performance, and for the almost unbelievable way its 6.5-litre V12 zeroes in on 8,900rpm.

The most incredible thing about the Lamborghini Revuelto isn’t its 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12, or the combined 1,001bhp it makes in league with a trio of electric motors, or its 2.5-second 0-62mph run or even its 217mph top speed. No, the most incredible thing is that a car with all those features is able to exist at all in 2026. We’re still not entirely sure how Lambo pulled it off, but boy are we glad it did.

In typical Lancia fashion, the 037 was a rather different beast to its Group B rally contemporaries. Rear-wheel drive rather than four and supercharged rather than turbocharged, it nevertheless will go down in history as the final two-wheel drive car to win the World Rally Championships. Well, unless something really weird happens with the regulations in the future.

Following on from the decade-spanning Countach, the Lamborghini Diablo only remained in production for a paltry 11 years, but it made the most of that time with a whole lot of incredible variants. This is where we start to see the modern Lambo influences creep in – 1993’s Diablo VT was the first of the company’s supercars to get all-wheel drive – but overall, it’s still very much of a supercar of the old school, and all the better for it.

It wasn’t particularly pretty, it was laughably impractical, and with a chassis and powertrain borrowed wholesale from the Ferrari Enzo, there was very little Maserati in the MC12. But two words help establish it as one of the coolest supercars of its day: homologation special. Road cars that exist solely for the purpose of racing were a dying art by the Noughties, but the MC12 bucked that trend in spectacular fashion.

Following up on three predecessors with incredible V12s was always going to be a tricky task for the V6-powered Ferrari F80, but in a development that should come as no surprise whatsoever to anyone familiar with Ferrari’s current standards, it’s absolutely up to the task. Considering that 1,183bhp should by all rights make a car borderline undriveable on the road, the F80’s broad range of talents really are astonishing.

The Stratos was the first car designed from the outset to go rallying, rather than using an existing car as its basis, and somewhat improbably, the configuration Lancia landed on was a mid-engined supercar. Even more improbably, it worked: the Stratos took three WRC titles on the bounce between 1974 and 1976, and looked incredible doing it. Sounded good too, thanks to a 2.4-litre Ferrari V6.

There’s inevitably been a lot of big-money exotica on this list, so how about we bring things right back down to earth with basically the exact opposite of that? The original Fiat Panda is the idea of A Car in its essential form, stripped of any fripperies and haughty notions of aspiration but still bursting with character. That, in our book, makes it just as cool as any bajillion-pound, rocket-powered hypercar.

This is where Ferrari’s modern hypercar story begins: essentially, with a wide-arched, twin-turbocharged 308 designed to compete in a race series that never ended up happening. We can only be grateful that Ferrari pressed on with it anyway, because not only did it usher in a dynasty, but it itself became one of the most legendary supercars of a decade that wasn’t exactly short of talent.

New supercar startups pop up with ever more frequency these days, with plans to take on the establishment and glossy renderings of wheeled spaceships. Most of them are, to put it politely, absolute chancers who disappear without a trace within a couple of years. Plenty thought the same about Pagani back in the late ’90s, but its first model, the Zonda, pretty quickly proved it was here to stay, and sure enough, here it still is.

Of the six most expensive cars to ever sell at auction, four are Ferrari 250 GTOs. Today, this car is associated more with the stratospheric values it commands than anything else, but the reasons ultra-wealthy collectors fall over one another to own it are the same ones that make it great: its racing pedigree, its rarity, its wonderful V12 engine and its truly knee-weakening beauty. Oh, yeah, that badge helps too.

The most beautiful car ever created? We know, eye of the beholder, etc, etc, but we can’t imagine anyone who’s ever laid eyes on an original Alfa 33 Stradale wouldn’t at least have it in their top 10. Arguably one of the first true supercars, it wasn’t just pretty but innovative, with double-wishbone front suspension, inboard rear brakes and, in a first for a road car, a six-speed gearbox.

The Lancia Delta Integrale is, simply put, the most successful rally car of all time. That somewhat glosses over the fact that for the early part of its career, it didn’t have many fully-fledged factory-entered rivals, but we can’t be too picky, especially when it spawned a series of phenomenally cool, swollen-arched all-weather road cars. Even among ’90s rally homologation specials, the Integrale stands out as, erm… extra special.

Ferrari was hardly on the ropes coming into the 1990s, but it had let its usual high standards slip when it came to road cars. The 348 in particular was regarded as a bit tepid, so new boss Luca di Montezemolo tasked the company with correcting that with its successor. Boy, did they deliver: the gorgeous F355 was light years ahead as both a daily tool and a driver’s car, and set Ferrari up for its 21st century successes.

The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 – known universally by the unofficial but much more pleasing Daytona name – didn’t break any performance records, or establish new engineering boundaries. It was a conventional front-engined Ferrari grand tourer. But for the way it exemplifies Riviera-cruising ’60s glamour better than any other car, and for its goosebump-inducing beauty, it earns a place on this list, and high up it.

For a name so beloved to so many enthusiasts, Alfa Romeo hadn’t built a truly brilliant performance car for a long time when the Giulia Quadrifoglio arrived. This stunning super saloon, though, felt like it was designed especially to make up for all those years of near-misses. Not only beautiful to behold and bubbling with character, but genuinely class-leading to drive, it remains one of the greatest performance cars of the modern era. 

It’s a rare car that leaves a strong enough impression on us for it to receive a straight 10/10, no notes TG review score, but the Pagani Utopia has done just that. It’s an always-involving 852bhp V12 masterpiece with the option of a proper manual gearbox, the ability to be thrilling when you want it to and docile when you don’t, and enough artistry, theatre and musicality to make it worthy of an EGOT.

Hard to believe the F50 was met with a somewhat muted reception when it first launched, isn’t it? The car industry has changed so dramatically in the intervening 30 years that we’re pretty sure that if Ferrari announced a manual-gearboxed hypercar with a wailing F1-derived V12 bolted directly to the chassis now, the internet would literally explode. Even those once-awkward looks have grown on us.

Arriving at one of those periods where the supercar industry seems to have A Moment, the Enzo landed alongside other greats like the Porsche Carrera GT and Mercedes SLR McLaren. It marked a tipping point in the Ferrari story, the point at which technology started to define its cars to an ever-greater degree, but it never let that tech get in the way of what a fantastically complete hypercar package it was. Well, apart from that semi-auto gearbox.

The confidence, the hubris, the sheer borderline arrogance of Ferrari to name this car in such a way that suggested it wasn’t just a Ferrari but the Ferrari could have set the company up for embarrassment if it was anything other than a spectacular product. As you’ll doubtless be aware, though, absolutely flipping spectacular it was: an era-defining hypercar, and another rare recipient of a 10/10 TG review score.

That shape. It’s that shape. You could have precisely zero interest in cars – nay, actively despise them – but viewing a Countach in side profile would still awaken something primal within you, make your hairs stand on end and your heart beat faster. It’s just that exciting, and that’s before its mighty V12 fires into life. In terms of making it the company it is today, the Countach might just be the most important car in Lamborghini’s history.

Again, all these supercars are all well and good, but the original Fiat 500 is more proof that Italy excels even when it comes to the most humble of cars. What began as a way of getting a rebuilding nation onto four wheels after the Second World War quickly morphed into a visual byword for Italian-ness. It’s all the country’s centuries-long history of ingenious engineering, brilliant design and effortless style distilled into one brilliant little car.

We knew the Ferrari 458 Speciale was good when we first drove it back in 2014. Great, in fact. We knew, too, that it arrived at a watershed moment for supercars, and that cars with engines like its scintillating 4.5-litre, 9,000rpm V8 weren’t going to be around for much longer. Did we know that over a decade later, we’d hold it in quite such a reverential regard as we do? Well… yeah. The signs were there from the beginning.

The Miura wasn’t the first mid-engined road car, and the concept of a ‘supercar’ is a bit too nebulous to say it was the first in that regard. It also tried to take off if you drove it too fast. But milestones, labels and, erm, aerodynamic stability don’t matter when you’ve got a car so knee-weakeningly beautiful, so ridiculously glamorous, so industry-shakingly spectacular as this.

Think Italian cars and you think supercars, think supercars and you think Ferrari, and think Ferrari and you most likely think of its greatest car, the F40. The first road car to crack 200mph and the last Ferrari to be personally signed off by Enzo himself, this unabashedly pure driver’s car was almost instantly catapulted to a legendary status that’s never once shown any sign of fading, and never will, and that makes it Italy’s greatest contribution to the car world. So far.