Going back to 1886 and the dawn of the motorised carriage, the fastest cars in the world have always played on the minds of manufacturers and enthusiasts alike.

Karl Benz's Patent Motorwagen could achieve a heady 10mph on a good day, with a lightweight driver and a favourable wind. Today, nearly 140 years of development has pushed the very fastest cars past a monumental 300mph.

The Benz’s brave driver could cover just 4.4 metres per second; in 2019, with Andy Wallace behind the wheel, the Bugatti Chiron covered 136 metres per second.

It’s a fearsome prospect, and there are only a handful of places on earth where cars of this calibre can reach their V-max, yet there’s no shortage of car manufacturers vying for top honours.

These include Bugatti, SSC, Hennessey, Koenigsegg, and Zenvo, all of which hail from different countries around the world and are looking to become the successors to the current record-holder. As a result, many of these cars are also the world's fastest accelerating cars. 

With that in mind, here are the fastest production road cars by the numbers, judged against manufacturer figures when they've were tested on an airfield or dedicated test track. And because chasing top speed is such a wild and outlandish pursuit, we've gone for more than the usual 10...

The 15 fastest cars in the world