Top Gear's Top 9: one-hit wonder supercars

German outfit 9ff was one of many Porsche 911 tuners. So, it decided to grab headlines by building a mid-engined, 1,120bhp 997 GT3 good for 256mph.

Against the odds, it succeeded. Bankruptcy followed in 2013, and only a handful of the 150 intended GT9s ever got built.

“F1 car for the road” is a persistent dream in supercar land, but the £235k T1’s torrid reputation for setting fire to Jason Plato kneecapped an elegant design.

With 575bhp shoving just 875kg, performance was vivid but terrifying. Only 16 were completed, despite 25 units a year being planned.

In 1995, pre-VW Bugatti went bust (again). A band of engineers bought the 21 leftover carbon chassis made for its EB110 supercar, enlarged the 3.5-litre V12 to 3.8 litres, and swapped four tiny turbos for two big ’uns.

Result? The 223mph Edonis. Then VW bought Bugatti and B Engineering was gone.

Marcello Gandini’s follow-up design to his stunning Countach was poo-pooed by Lambo’s Chrysler overlords, so he flounced off to music composer Giorgio Moroder to build a 6.0-litre, 64-valve, 540bhp V16 Diablo-eater.

Incredibly, 20 were made and sold before the whole operation fell apart.

Thought speedsters like the Ferrari Monza were a new idea? Not by half. Veritas was a short-lived post-war West German car maker, and was reborn in the early 2000s to produce this wild hyper-Caterham powered by a V12... then a V8... then nothing, as it flopped.  

Like 9ff (only American) here’s another example of a patriotic tuner getting ideas above its station. Mustang fiddlers Saleen stamped out 21 S7 Twin Turbos, good for 750bhp and made a racing version that finished 11th at Le Mans.

Since then, it’s had money woes and aborted the S7’s successors.

As 2008 dawned, the 625bhp Ascari A10 was the fastest car ever around the Top Gear test track. After two faltering attempts to get Ascari into the big time, the A10, built to celebrate its 10th anniversary (really?), was so promising, but the 50-strong production run never materialised.

Another former TG Stig lap record holder, the exquistely hideous Apollo was the brainchild of ex-Audi Quattro engineer Roland Gumpert.

Its 750bhp bi-turbo Audi V8 potency wasn’t in doubt, but its crashy reputation and bizarrely alien looks sent Gumpert into liquidation by summer 2012.

Gordon Murray’s ultimate no-compromise sports car (no, not the gold engine bay one) was the 381kg, bike-engined Light Car Company Rocket. Tandem seats, a 10,500rpm red line and 456bhp per tonne sounds pretty exciting (and relevant) to us.

LCC built 46 Rockets, then shut up shop.