Astonishing Front-Engined Monsters That Defy Supercar Convention

Lexus LFA

It’s been three years since Lexus’ one and only supercar went out of production, and we’re still talking about it. Maybe that’s because Lexus hasn’t made anything anywhere near as awesome since, but we’ll gloss over that.

Despite being a technical tour-de-force with its active aero, a chassis and bodywork made mostly of a carbonfibre reinforced polymer, and a 4.8-litre V10 that revs to 9000rpm, Lexus decided not to mount the engine in the ‘exotic’ middle position. Instead, the V10 was slung up front to make the LFA more forgiving to drive.

The weight distribution isn’t far off 50/50 however, thanks to the use of a transaxle gearbox, plus the mounting of the radiators at the rear and the fuel tank in front of the rear axle.

When we popped the word ‘supercar’ into our ‘Living With’ video concerning the Vanquish, we made a fair few commenters a bit angry. Is it really a supercar, or more of a grand tourer? Well, the numbers are certainly strong enough: its 5.9-litre V12 kicks out 568bhp, it’ll do 0-62mph in 3.8 seconds, and will top out at 201mph. And - most importantly - it looks sensational.

It perhaps does tread a fine line between supercar and bonkers fast GT, but we reckon it deserves a place here.

3. Aston Martin One-77

Unlike the Vanquish, there’s no doubting the supercar credentials of this Aston Martin. Limited to just 77 units (hence the name), each One-77 is powered by Gaydon’s venerable V12, only here, it displaces 7.3 litres and is good for 750bhp. 0-62mph happens in ‘under’ 3.7 seconds, while the top speed is 220mph, making this the fastest road car Aston Martin has ever built. The price? £1.1 million…

4. TVR Cerbera Speed 12

The Speed 12 would easily be the maddest front-engined supercar ever built, had it actually been built. It was intended to be the basis for a GT racing car, but the competition versions only raced a handful of times, hampered by reliability issues and eventually rendered obsolete by changing regulations.

The road car version didn’t fare much better. When then-TVR owner Peter Wheeler drove a prototype, he deemed it unusable for the road. And if the owner of a company like TVR thinks a car is too extreme, there’s a problem, so that’s when the project was cancelled. It’s not hard to see why: there are no firm power figures, but it was reported to be packing as much as 1000bhp from its 7.7-litre V12, in a car that that weighs around 1000kg. Cripes.

However, this wasn’t quite the end for the Speed 12: one example was built and sold, using an unused bodyshell from the racing programme since all the road-going bodies had been destroyed. And amazingly, it - as far as we know - hasn’t been binned into a tree yet…

5. Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

Even after adopting and perfecting the mid-engined layout, Ferrari continued to produce cars with power plants living up front. Front-engined Ferraris started getting particularly stunning with the arrival of the 550 Maranello and subsequent 575, but it’s the later 599 GTB Fiorano we’re looking at here.

It was the last V12-powered Ferrari available with a manual gearbox (even if only 30 people actually bought a stick-shifting version), and is properly quick: its 6.0-litre engine is good for 612bhp, making 0-62mph possible in 4.2 seconds and allowing for a top speed just shy of 200mph, with the limited-run GTO model faster still. And as you can see above, in the right colour with the right wheels, the GTB looks pretty dapper too.

6. Ferrari F12

In 2012, 599 GTB production ended, and Ferrari rolled out its replacement: the F12. This 730bhp, 6.3-litre V12-powered monster is beaten only by the LaFerrari around Fiorano, and matched by the 488 GTB. That’s unless you count the tdf version of the F12, which is two seconds faster and just a little over a second slower than the hybrid LaFerrari.

It’s actually smaller and lighter than the older 599, and has a bloody clever aero package. The coolest bit is the ‘Aero Bridge’, which deflects air from the bottom of the windscreen, using it to decrease drag around the wheel arches. The F12 tdf is cleverer still, which is why we dedicated an entire article to its ingenuousness.

7. Nissan GT-R

We’re in a damned-if-we-do/damned-if-we-don’t situation with the Nissan GT-R. By including it, we’ll be told it doesn’t have a posh enough badge, that it’s not exotic enough, too cheap or that we’re being fanboys. On the other hand, how could we not have it here? This 542bhp brute offers genuinely painful levels of acceleration, and is enormously capable. Pretty much anyone who’s driven one would be happy to call it a supercar, and it - as you probably know - has its weapons-grade 3.8-litre turbocharged V6 power plant at the front, rather than the middle.

8. Dodge Viper ACR

As with the GT-R, the Viper is a car that perhaps doesn’t come to mind when you’re thinking about front-engined supercars. But the latest ones are definitely quick enough - and bonkers enough - to be considered for such a title. Our pick? It would have to be the the ACR, preferably with the Extreme Aero pack which produces a frankly silly 545kg of downforce at 150mph.

It has all the usual impressive stats in the power and acceleration departments (640bhp and 0-60mph in 3.5 seconds, if you were wondering), but where the ACR gets really impressive is just how fast it is on track. To prove just how fast, Dodge recently had a crack at a bunch of track records in America, and jolly well cleaned up, clocking an astonishing 13 lap records in the process.

What’s your favourite front-engined supercar?