Hold on to your butts: These are the 20 fastest 

cars in the world

“How fast can it go?”

There are many ways to measure automotive excellence, but top speed is the one everybody secretly cares about the most. Aldous Huxley was right about speed being the only truly modern sensation. He left out the part about how much fun it is. These 20 cars are more than just fun, though, they’re the fastest production cars in the world. The emphasis here is on “production;” racers and one-off custom jobs need not apply. We also tried to limit the selections to cars whose claimed top speeds have been generally recognized as legitimate by the automotive media and sanctioning groups.

Related: The 10 most expensive cars in the world make Teslas look like Toyotas

There are also some cars on the horizon that appear ready to knock some names off this list. SSC still hopes to reclaim the title of world’s fastest car with its 1,350-horsepower Tuatara, and Koenigsegg claims a top speed of more than 273 miles per hour for its One:1. For now, though, these are the fastest cars that can legally sport a license plate.

The combination of a Lotus Elise chassis and 1,244-hp 7.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 gives us the fastest production car in the world. Depending on your definition of “fastest” and “production car,” that is.

Hennessey recorded a 270.4-mph run at the Kennedy Space Center last year, but only in one direction. To be considered legitimate, record attempts usually require one run in each direction. An average is then taken to account for wind conditions.

Because of its hand-built nature, there’s also some debate about whether the Venom GT qualifies as a production car. While it can claim the highest recorded speed, Hennessey’s monster isn’t recognized as the world’s fastest car by the Guinness Book of World Records.