911 Carrera Cabriolet

Make
Porsche
Segment
Compact

Why spend a quarter of a million on a new supercar when you can go even faster for six-figures (at least) less? That's the beauty of British lightweight high-performance cars, specifically the likes of the BAC Mono, Ariel Atom 3.5 and Caterham 620S. How fast are these minimalist street legal track animals? That's exactly what the crew over at Top Gear wanted to find out, and what better way to do so than stage a drag race. The contenders included the three aforementioned vehicles, along with the Ariel Nomad.

The Nomad is that crazy off-road machine that'll splatter mud up your nose in the right conditions. But it's also wicked fast with a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.6 seconds. By the way, that time is the slowest of the four contenders. Impressive. So which is the fastest? Well, you've got three choices at this point, and the winner blasted to 60 mph in only 3.1 seconds.

That's nearly Ferrari 488 GTB timing. Second and third place were only tenths of a second behind. Sure, you don't benefit from all of those creature comforts found in modern supercars, but these track-focused machines are for the purist minded. Speed, performance and handling are what matter most, not infotainment systems and fancy schmancy leather and Alcantara seats. It's all about the power-to-weight ratio.