Top 4 Retro Boutique Supercars You Probably Never Knew About

Imagine a world without Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, McLaren, and other high-end supercar makers. We’d be doomed without the speed, luxury, and wickedness of some of the best supercars in the world.

Not so fast.

The following bespoke supercars never rose to fame like the aforementioned companies’ creations, but are unique enough and impressive enough to fill their shoes – if you dig their, um, distinctive appearances.

Colani Ferrari Testa d’Oro

OK, we kind of cheated with our Ferrari-less hypothetical world we had you picture earlier: the Colani Ferrari Testa d’Oro, as the name suggests, wouldn’t be possible with Ferrari.

Starting off with a largely standard Ferrari Testarossa, designer Luigi Colani employed tuner Lotec for engine modifications. Their work resulted in a monster upgrade, jumping from 428 horsepower to 750. Colani was obsessed with performance, as his vision for the car was simple: to completely dominate the racetrack, specifically at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Did he do it? Well, it was fast. The Testa d’Oro broke the record in its class, hitting 218 mph (351 km/h) in 1991.

Zender Fact 4

If a Ferrari F40 and Audi R8 had a lovechild, the Zender Fact 4 would be the offspring.

Backed by roughly 450 horsepower, the Fact 4 can touch 190 mph (305 km/h) and do the zero-to-100-km/h thing in 4.3 seconds. That’s not bad for an independent firm entering the supercar foray with their own custom design (they only made two, but they tried).

The ingenuity behind the Fact 4 was more impressive than its performance though; the engineering solution for its immense Audi V8, twin turbos, and sleek mid-engined packaging was complex.

ALSO SEE: Top 10 Boutique Supercars You Didn’t Know Existed

Venturi 400 GT

A supercar based off the Atlantique, the 400 GT was created so Venturi could race at Le Mans. We use the term “race” loosely, as the 400 GT didn’t fare well against the powerful competition.

Since it stunk up the track, Venturi took its heavily-slanted-towards-racing Atlantique design and converted the specs for road use. Other than the Buggati Veyron, this is the fastest French car every produced, Le Mans performance be damned.

Zero to 100 km/h (62 mph) takes just 4.7 seconds, with a top speed of 291 km/h (181 mph). For Ferrari nerds, that’s a full 20 mph shy of the Ferrari F40.

Bertone Panther

Scuderia Brescia Course was a team of renegade racers that banded together in 1964, after their local government wouldn’t reignite the Mille Miglia.

The team’s goals became clear at the Bertone stand for the 1968 Geneva Motor Show: to create a supercar that would crush over 3-litre prototype races in the World Sportscar Championship.

Bertone was contracted to create the prototype, and they outdid themselves with revolutionary work. That included an alloy and titanium tube frame chassis, 24-volt electrics, and an imaginative hydraulically controlled main rear spoiler that sat in the middle of the car’s roof.

This story originally appeared on Luxury4Play.com