20 of the most powerful US cars ever built

In the horsepower arms race, Hennessy is often up at the very top, switching positions back and forth with its rivals. As soon as a record is broken, the team goes right back to reclaiming it. Its current contender is the Venom F5, a two-seater coupe powered by a 6.6-liter twin turbo V8. This powerplant generates 1,817hp and 1,193 lb ft of torque. From what the company has learned from its previous car, the Venom GT, Hennessy hopes to send the F5 to speeds as high as 311mph. Limited to just 24 units, some come in a roadster configuration, just in case you want to know what it’d be like to stick your head out the top of a fighter jet.

SSC’s follow-up to the Ultimate Aero sounds like it would get your mouth washed out with soap if you said it out loud, but you’d likely be exclaiming a fair bit of filth anyway if you ever found yourself taking a ride. Powered by a 5.9-liter twin-turbo flat-plane crank V8, the sharpish coupe has a power output between 1,350hp or 2,200hp depending on the type of fuel. There are varying accounts of its record attempts, but the most substantiated run states the SSC “it’s actually named after a New Zealand lizard” achieved a 295mph top speed on a 2.3-mile runway.

Sing the praises of the Czinger 21C, the (mostly) 3D printed hybrid sports car that looks like a jet and goes just as fast. While most folks use this sort of tech to create plastic tchotchkes or fabricating small components, the Czinger family leveraged its 3D manufacturing business to build and design a supercar. Its engine is a 2.88-liter twin-turbo V8 that’s married to three electric motors and puts out a total of 1,250hp. the 21C is currently the fastest production car up the Goodwood hillclimb shootout and, we dare say, looked damn good doing so.

Lucid’s got a good thing going with its top-of-the-line Air, the Sapphire. The luxury EV is mighty powerful but it also has fantastic handling. Three motors give the sedan 1,234 horsepower, rocketing from 0 to 60 in a neck-breaking 1.89 seconds, topping out at 205mph. What are you paying for all this fast luxury? At least $250,000 to get in the door. That’s what we like to call “Lambo money” around here. Worth getting this over a Huracán or whatever comes next? Which one do you think fits more groceries? Yes, this is a metric now.

You can’t talk about American speed demons without mentioning the Model S Plaid, the Spaceballsiest EV on US roads. This version of the highly successful sedan cranks things up to around 1,020hp, using all four wheels to send the two-ton family car from 0 to 60 in a comfortable two seconds - or 1.99 seconds, if you want to be a stickler about it, which Tesla or any other record-setter absolutely does. Love it or hate it, Tesla deserves credit for proving that high power isn’t solely the realm of the big-block combustion kings.

Electrification may be the current cheat code for substantially raising a car’s total output, but leave it to Dodge to develop a stunning machine with old-fashioned combustion-powered muscle. The Dodge Demon was a turn-key drag strip racer with a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 that whipped up 808hp and 770lb ft of torque. A unique launch control allowed would-be drag strippers to dial on the power before unleashing it for a potential sub-10 second quarter mile run. Appropriately for a car named “Demon” it was hot stuff.

A few decades ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger saw a military Humvee drive around town while he filmed Kindergarten Cop and said “I want one". Skip ahead a bit and the Hummer craze swept the nation, becoming an icon of the era as well as for gaudy excess. The nameplate fizzled out, but has been recently resurrected in the form of a five-ton, 1,000hp electric vehicle of all things. It’s still pretty obnoxious but it had to be, of course. You’re still trying to process how Kindergarten Cop got us here, aren’t you? We’re doing the same.

Rivian’s off-road ready EVs don’t strictly need as much power as they provide, but that’s hardly a reason to hold back, is it? In their quad-motor configurations the Rivian SUV R1S and pickup R1T produce 1,025hp and 1,198lb ft of torque. What do they do with all that power? Lay it on the pavement for sick launches off the line, of course. With the built-in and easy to use launch control, both vehicles can easily hit sub-three-second 0 to 60 times, with the R1T in particular capable of a 2.5-second time, given the right conditions.

How do you make America’s favorite pickup truck even better? Throw gobs of power at it and slap on a suspension springy enough to make the Blue Angels jealous of its air time. The current version tops out at 720hp and 640lb ft of torque thanks to its supercharged 5.2-liter V8. As big and brawny as it is, it’s also extremely playful throughout all sorts of terrain. On top of all that, superb software that’s able to get the Raptor over and around all sorts of obstacles make it one of those brainy powerlifters.

Hail to the king, baby. The Ram 1500 TRX became the dominant predator of the sport truck world when the Raptor briefly went all-in on Ford’s EcoBoost tech, coming in swinging with a 6.2-liter supercharged HEMI V8 that cranked out 702hp. That and a whole lot of attitude put Ford on notice, enough so that it brought back V8 power to the Raptor with a vengeance. Its production is wrapping up and the new Ford ekes out a bit more power, but we’ll never forget the impact this truck made.

You want a muscle car? You get a Mustang. You want a more powerful Mustang? You get a Shelby GT500. You want the most powerful Mustang? Friends, meet the king of the road. The GT500KR comes around every so often to remind everyone who runs these streets, with the latest version putting out 900hp out of its 5.2-liter V8, fitted to a 3.8-liter supercharger. Yeah, its supercharger is bigger than your daily driver’s whole engine.

American muscle is all grown up, but it hasn’t lost its edge, thanks to the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing. With a refined luxury look and sedan convenience, this muscle car for dads is classy and convenient, but still packs a punch, thanks to a 6.2-liter V8 laying down a devilish 668hp. There’s a 10-speed automatic option but if you chose it, you’ll be missing out on one of the smoothest manual gearboxes in the biz.

Ford has celebrated its iconic Le Mans-winning GT40 a few times now, a car certainly made famous by its wins but helped along by the fact that it’s just so damn good looking. Even the retro-tastic remake of the early aughts looked amazing. The most recent version ditched the throwback looks for a more modern interpretation and also acted as a showcase of Ford’s EcoBoost tech. The mid-engine monster houses a conservatively sized 3.5-liter V6 that was able to squeeze out 700hp by the end of its run.

Dodge’s Challenger may get all the attention due to the Demon, but the Charger is no slouch. Its long production run is coming to an end, but it’s going out in style, particularly in the guise of the Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye. This four-door chest-thumping ride is powered by a 6.2-liter HEMI V8 and puts down 807hp and 707lb ft of torque. It looks mean, it sounds mean, and it’s got the grunt to back it up.

The Saleen S7 was certainly a poster-worthy supercar, even if it suffered a bit from “the McLaren F1 we have at home” syndrome. Still, the 750hp from its mid-mounted twin-turbo V8 was nothing to sniff at, particularly at the time. It’s said - by Saleen - that the S7 was able to go from 0 to 60 in just 2.7 seconds and topped out at just under 250mph. Not bad for a supercar that has the energy of a sketchy uncle with an unclear job who drops by at random and only pays in wads of cash.

If we’re talking iconic American powerhouses, no list can be complete without mention of the Dodge Viper. A legend in the 1990s, the Viper was as ostentatious as it was powerful, housing a front-mounted V10 throughout its lifespan. Before it was sent to the car version of “a farm upstate", the Viper went out with an 8.4-liter V10 that churned out 645hp and 600lb ft of torque.

If Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus sounds like word salad of our own devising, we promise you it’s an automaker, though admittedly one of the more unique ones. Based in Sleepy Hollow, New York, SCG is run by James Glickenhaus, a former film producer of Jackie Chan movies who builds Le Mans-worthy race cars. Okay, yeah that sounds made up, too, but seriously, this is legit. As is the 003S, the surprisingly street legal version of one of his racers. Powered by a 4.4-liter twin-turbo BMW V8, the stunning street car whips up 750hp and goes from 0 to 60 in three seconds flat.

If you thought Chevrolet was sitting on its hands while everyone else was throwing out powerhouse sports cars, think again. We’re all steeling ourselves for the next Corvette ZR1, a 1,064hp hyper jet for the road. A 5.5-liter flat-plane crank V8 powers the now mid-engined American sports car juggernaut, topping out at 215 mph and laying down 828lb ft of torque to get it there. At that speed, 1,200lbs of downforce does its job of keeping the ‘Vette planted on the road while it chews up lap times like a dog’s toy.

If you thought the Cadillac Escalade wasn’t big and brash enough, we have good news: meet the Escalade-V, an Uber with an attitude. Powered by a 6.2-liter supercharged V8, the full-sized luxury SUV puts out 682hp and 653 lb ft of torque. It'll skip from 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds, so if you need a three-row people mover to get you and your crew to the next venue ASAP and do it in style, this is the vehicle for you.

Folks have been tinkering with Mustangs from the start, giving them loads more muscle than they started with, better performance chops and all sorts of ways to make them more personal. Roush is a tuning house that’s long been associated with the pony car, with its Stage 3 Mustang a version that rivals what Ford itself can offer. The most current version is capable of delivering 775hp and is loaded with a number of other performance bits to handle it all. Shelby might be the Mustang variant everyone knows, but Roush is the name Mustang people revere, and for good reason.