Ever wondered what the current limits of engine tuning are? Well, here are the world’s most powerful modified cars to help answer that question.
As the old saying goes, power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. But unlike so many facets of modern living, this is the kind of corruption we can get fully on board with; after all, while we have a lot of respect for the less-is-more principle, there’s a lot to be said for exploring how much more the very concept of ‘more’ can be stretched to.
We’re not alone in this thirst for maximum-attack boundary-pushing. Modifiers across the globe are chasing ever-larger power figures, and here we’ve pulled together ten of the most extreme…
World’s Most Powerful Modified Cars
Extreme Turbo Systems R35 GT-R
Headline power figures are any car’s most important pub boast, and in the realm of the hypercar it turns into a bit of an arms race. The Bugatti Veyron had 987bhp at launch; its replacement, the Chiron, came out swinging with 1,479bhp. Electric hypercars are even more nuts – look at the Rimac Nevera, that’s got 1,888bhp.
But all of this is so much chicken feed to the mad scientists at Extreme Turbo Systems and English Racing. Their silver Nissan GT-R boasts 3,046 horses at the wheels – and that’s just bananas. So much grunt that it tries to physically launch itself off the rollers on a dyno pull, and it currently holds the world record for the standing half-mile, hitting 255mph in the process. Watch the run here.
Red Victor 3
Brainchild of revered mechanic and speedfreak Andy Frost, Red Victor 3 is a wonderfully unlikely machine. Essentially it’s a 1972 Vauxhall VX4/90 FD – except that it isn’t any more, not really. Before it came Red Victors 1 and 2 – both actually the same car in different guises, a ’72 Vauxhall Victor that ended up with over 2,300bhp.
To amp up the drama, Andy spent three years building Red Victor 3 in conjunction with such luminaries as Wayne Allman, Jon Webster, Darryl Coleman and Dale Edmonds. It’s got a bespoke body by the Intergalactic Custom Shop, and under the hood is a built 8.8-litre ZL1-block Chevrolet V8 with billet heads and custom-built twin Precision turbos. This adds up to over 3,000bhp, making Red Victor 3 the world’s fastest street-legal car as of 2019 – when it ran a quarter-mile in 5.87s @ 263.74mph. A while ago, Fifth Gear even ran a TV feature on this car, which you can watch here.
BADD GT
310.8mph. That’s the headline figure here. The hotly-contested title of ‘fastest street car in the world’ belongs to the BADD GT, a heavily modified 2006 Ford GT that you could, if the mood took you, conceivably pop to the shops in. Fans of Fast ‘N’ Loud will be familiar with the car, as it’s colourfully sponsored by Gas Monkey Garage. It’s got functional a/c, electric windows and a stereo, and its owner Johnny Bohmer regularly uses it for the school run – and in 2022 he took it to the Kennedy Space Centre and smashed through the triple-ton.
The twin-turbo V8 still runs the stock block – it’s putting out around 2,700bhp, and that’s actually a relatively conservative state of tune, they have the potential to wind it up a lot further if they feel like it. Which is pretty rad. Check it out here.
Jeff Lutz’s Chevrolet Bel Air
Jeff Lutz is a name synonymous with massive horsepower in the States. His ‘Mad Max’ ’69 Camaro is a legend in the drag scene; in 2016 it was the world’s fastest street-legal car (a phrase that’s appearing in this round-up a lot!), nailing the quarter-mile in 5.85s @ 250.27mph.
Well, for 2023 Jeff decided to stride back into the hypermodded car arena with a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. It’s packing a Vinson Race Engines 427ci V8 with twin Precision mirror turbos, running on E85, and it’s putting out a hilarious 2,000bhp. Oh, and it’s his daily driver too, so it’s got front and rear bench seats and cupholders, plus a full Kicker sound system. Ride along in it, here.
Underground Racing Twin-Turbo Gallardo
There’s something a bit unhinged about Underground Racing. They’ve built dozens upon dozens of huge-horsepower Gallardos for customers, along with countless Huracáns, Aventadors and Murciélagos. So when Murad Alzuraiki got a hankering to go fast, they were the first people he turned to.
Taking his manual 2007 Gallardo as a base, Underground Racing blueprinted and balanced the engine, fitted twin billet 62mm Precision turbos and forged internals, and ended up with an eye-watering 2,300bhp. And most intriguingly of all, they retained the manual setup and installed a billet gearset inside the stock 6-speed transmission. “It’s very docile, it has air-con and all the factory options,” says Murad. “I knew they’d bring my vision to life – an unbeatably powerful car that I could still use every day. And there isn’t a single manual-transmission car in the world that can beat it over the half-mile.”
Land Speed Cruiser
This was bound to happen eventually, wasn’t it? The buying public across the globe has been increasingly shifting its affections toward SUVs and away from other bodystyles, to the extent that manufacturers are withdrawing hatchbacks and sedans from certain markets. So the next logical step is modded and tuned big-power SUVs, right?
Step forward, the Toyota Land Speed Cruiser. In a project by the clandestine skunkworks division of Toyota USA, a fresh new Land Cruiser was plucked from the production line and torn to bits. They then stuffed in a huge pair of Garrett turbos, kitted out the 5.7-litre V8 with forged internals, substantially lowered the body over the frame, and stuck a roll cage in the stripped cabin. It rolls on Fox shocks with Eibach springs over 20” MOMO/TRD wheels. Yep, and it’s got 2,000bhp – which pushes the unlikely brick beyond 230mph. See it in action here.
Mustang Boss 10.0
The ‘-point-oh’ suffix was widely popularized by Vanilla Ice and the Fox-body Mustang 5.0. And brilliantly – and bizarrely – by the time its replacement, the SN-95, came around, Ford’s SVE division was feeling a bit frisky. The result was the bonkers Mustang Boss 10.0. From the outside it looked kinda like a regular SN-95 – but underneath the ten-point-oh’s extravagantly cowled bonnet resided a 429ci block that had been bored out to 598ci (that’s 9.8-litres!), fitted with NASCAR manifolds and a massive fuelling system.
It had 855bhp, could run 0-60mph in 1.9 seconds, and cover the quarter-mile in 10.5 seconds – which, for a manufacturer-tuned car in 1994, was little short of incredible. Learn more about it here.
3:16 Speed Huracan
Based in Clearwater, Florida, 3:16 Speed’s mantra is ‘Burn rubber for Christ’, and that’s the name you hear everybody inadvertently yelling when their brutalized Lambos roll by, licking out foot-long flames and making unholy noises. The company offers a bunch of twin-turbo tiers for the Huracán, from Street to Super Street to Extreme Street – but the daftest of them all is what they call ‘The F16’.
This involves kitting out the 5.2-litre V10 engine with Precision 6466 mirror turbos, bespoke intercoolers, forged internals, custom heads, a Motec ECU with a custom tune, and a much stronger transmission. The result is 1,625hp at the wheels, plus some really extreme whistling and snorting. Hallelujah!
Top Secret V12 Supra
This is the stuff of legend. The 1990s modding scene in Japan was off the hook, with extreme builds screaming in from every angle, and the daddy of them all came from the infamous tuning outfit Top Secret. They took a Mk4 Supra, chucked out the straight-six, and replaced it with the V12 from the Toyota Century, artfully reimagined with twin turbos and tuned up to a raucous 943bhp, good for a top speed of 222mph.
Company boss ‘Smokey’ Nagata was famously a bit of a character, to say the least, and in 1999 he had the V12 Supra shipped to the UK purely for the purpose of mischief. He took it out onto the A1M in the early hours of the morning and hit an indicated 197mph (in the rain!); he was swiftly arrested and deported, but his work was done: the highest speed ever recorded on the British highway. (And no, we wouldn’t recommend you try to beat that. Instead watch this video of him doing it and paying the price!
R56 MINI Works GP
This may be the least powerful car in this list, but it’s quite probably the most powerful street-legal MINI in the world. It looks relatively unassuming from the outside, sure, but that humble 1.6-litre N14 motor has been hysterically amped up thanks to the addition of CP pistons and Carrillo rods, ARP studs, ACL race bearings, AEM water-meth injection, a Supertech valvetrain and, crucially, a Garrett GTX3071R Gen II turbo.
All of this adds up to 613.7whp and 543.6lb.ft wtq, and these are unheard-of numbers in the MINI scene. Indeed, that’s the sort of power you’d expect to find in a McLaren 620R or an Audi R8 V10. “I was planning to do a Stage 2 build, I never intended to get to the point where I finally am today,” reckons its owner, Nikos Kostakis. But we’re very glad he did. Read the full feature here.
