The 50 Greatest Luxury Cars of All Time

Overlooked in its time and underappreciated even now, the Audi V-8 was the brainchild of legendary overengineer Ferdinand Piëch, who spearheaded the original Audi Quattro. It looked like any other Audi but packed every modern amenity and ran a brand-new all-aluminum quad-cam V-8. It also used some clever engineering to marry an automatic transmission to the company’s famous but brusque all-wheel drive system. Though it wasn’t a sales hit, the Audi V-8 found great success in racing, winning the DTM title back-to-back in 1990 and 1991. It presaged the modern luxury car: packed with tech and without compromise in power or drivability. — Raphael Orlove

There’s little reason to think that Porsche, left to its own devices, would have made an electric supersedan. Sure, its founder invented the series hybrid at the end of the 19th century, but this is the company that kept the air-cooled 911 in production for three decades. It’s conservative. But it’s also incapable of making a bad car. When it found itself in the position that it pretty much had to make an EV, it went ahead and made the best-driving one ever produced. The Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo is just as happy to blitz the Nürburgring Nordschleife as summit the dirt driveway to your country home. — RO

Like many of the greatest cars, the Airflow was a failure. It was too bold, and too dramatic in its pursuit of streamlining, all the rage in the ‘30s. Everything from locomotives to radios was getting the streamlined treatment, but luxury car buyers, conservative as they tend to be, eschewed Chrysler’s big gamble. Chrysler had a reputation for making high-quality cars that were somewhat stodgy. After the Airflow, that’s right what it got back to building. — RO

The ‘90s Buick Roadmaster is the end of a long line of body-on-frame, V-8, rear-drive sedans that GM churned out for virtually its entire existence. Though many other carmakers tout advancements in active suspension or high-tech engine developments, there’s nothing that quite captures the ease and solidity of these highway cruisers. The role of the great American sedan has been supplanted by SUVs. Something has been lost. — RO

If there was ever a high point in American design, as far as cars are concerned, it’d be the “coffin nose” Cords of the Art Deco era. Nothing was as avant-garde from any automaker the world over. Under the handsome skin, were some daring technical developments, as well. These Cords have a semi-automatic “preselector” transmission and front-wheel drive. You could argue they were decades ahead of their time, but has anything been as stylish ever since? — RO

Its predecessor began making gilded birdcages in 1865 and by 1901, Pierce-Arrow was manufacturing automobiles. Over the next two decades, their cars became a status symbol for Hollywood celebrities and heads of state, but by 1928, Studebaker gained control of the troubled company. The radically streamlined Silver Arrow, with its V-12 engine and a top speed of 115 mph, was unveiled in 1933 with the slogan “Suddenly it’s 1940!” Attracting ultra-wealthy customers with $10,000 to spend during the Great Depression was a challenge, and only five were sold in the single year of production. Three are known to exist today. — Robert Ross

If the Tesla Model S introduced the idea of a powerful, desirable electric car, the Lucid Air Sapphire perfected it. The Lucid achieves things its gas-powered predecessors could never do. It’s obscenely powerful, but without a bulky engine and transmission. It is roomy beyond belief. And the batteries sit on the floor so it handles as well as it rides. It’s also completely silent, refined as much as it is fast. — RO

It was during its third generation that the Range Rover went from being considered a capable off-roader to a bona fide luxury vehicle. The finest version of the British SUV was planned and developed during the brief period in the 1990s when Land Rover was owned by BMW (though the brand was sold to Ford before the model went into production). The 4×4 remained as capable as ever—though the option of a manual transmission was dropped—but took on a more refined and sophisticated air that it has maintained in the generations since. A luxe interior, that included climate control, leather upholstery, and an optional DVD entertainment system, also helped highlight the nameplate’s changed nature. The stylish bruiser was also a genuine hit, with nearly 300,000 examples rolling off the line between 2001 and 2012. — Bryan Hood 

The Panhard Dynamic is further proof that some of the most contrarian cars in the world come from France. And some of the most remarkable too, as the Dynamic was the belle of the Art Deco ball with its Streamline Moderne design. Designer Louis Bionier introduced wheel spats, curved windshield glass, and headlamps integrated into the front fenders, all in an era when most cars’ lights bulged like frog eyes. The Dynamic’s monocoque (unibody) construction and independent front suspension were well ahead of their time. With a third row of seating, the interior of the long version could accommodate nine occupants. The driver was centrally situated in front until customers complained and a conventional position was adopted in later models. An inline-6- sleeve-valve engine powered all Dynamic models. — RR

It’s easy to dismiss the J12 as a pale successor to the H6. It was a bigger car with a bigger engine, a simple ladder frame, and ordinary leaf spring suspension. Its worst sin: gone was the overhead camshaft of the straight six and in were pushrods. How crude! But this wasn’t a decision made for economy. The earlier six-cylinder Hispano-Suizas were luxurious, but a little noisy. They were sportier cars. The V-12s were all but silent, effortless as much as powerful. Few cars are as grand. At nearly three tons, few are as hefty, either. — RO

Liberated, as you might say, from the constraints of having to build export cars to conform to the West’s hunger for every latest and greatest styling fad or technical fashion, ZiL kept on making the same staid vehicles for the Soviet Union’s heads of state, decade after decade. Like it was trapped in amber, the ZiL of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s was virtually unchanged from the ZiL of the late ‘60s, not so different from the big American sedans of five or 10 years before that. The ZiL-4104 was one of the largest, longest, and heaviest automobiles ever produced. Isn’t that luxury? — RO

While the name is revered by enthusiasts who know the Stratos and Delta rally champions, Lancia’s greatest achievements came long before Fiat assumed control of the brand in 1969. Vincenzo Lancia founded his company in 1906, and soon began reinventing the automobile with a number of firsts that were revolutionary for the day. Made from 1922 to 1931, the Lambda was the first automobile to have a unibody design, all the more remarkable without the benefit of a stressed roof, as most Lambdas were four-door convertibles. It was the first to feature independent suspension with coil springs and shock absorbers, and had four-wheel brakes in an era when most cars used only rear-wheel braking. Notable too was its aluminum V4 engine. An impressive number—about 11,200—were built in nine series over ten years. — RR

Jaguar’s most endearing sedan ever is the Mark 2, as elegant in appearance as it is sporting to drive. Built from 1959 to 1967, it regularly appeared on British television as the preferred conveyance of detectives and the crooks they were after. Unibody construction was modern for the time, and the ultimate spec—with about 30,000 built—was powered by Jag’s 3.8-liter, DOHC inline-6 engine, essentially the same as that used in the E-Type. With about 220 hp and available with a manual or automatic gearbox, the Mk 2 was a capable performer. The cozy interior is swaddled in leather and burl wood, and rear-seat passengers even got elegant picnic tables that folded down from the front seatbacks. — RR

Packard built great cars right from its inception, quickly setting speed records at crossing the country (that was the one nicknamed “Old Pacific”) and at Daytona (that was the “Gray Wolf”.) They were bought by playboys and sheriffs and the gangsters they were trying to chase. Packard switched to military production in World War II and was mismanaged after the war, fading out in 1962. It’s a shame. The construction and care put into these hand-built Packards was immaculate. To pore over a V-12 Packard of the Depression era is to wonder what progress we’ve made since then. — RO

By the 1950s, there was no doubt which American luxury car maker reigned supreme. That wasn’t enough for the leadership at Cadillac, though. To further cement its position the company’s brain trust decided to release the Eldorado Brougham, a handbuilt version of the third-generation of its popular saloon that turned the decadence up to 11. Built in 1957 and 1958, the more exclusive four-door had several model-specific details including quad headlights (a first for an American vehicle), a stainless steel pillarless hardtop, and suicide doors. Those features weren’t all that differentiated the Brougham from the standard Eldorado. The deluxe model, which cost double the price of the standard four-door, is also the inspiration for the company’s latest handbuilt vehicle, the all-electric Celestiq. — BH

No, your eyes do not deceive you, a Volkswagen did earn itself a spot on the list of the greatest luxury vehicles of all time. That’s because the first-generation Phaeton has little in common with utilitarian models like the Beetle and Microbus aside from the badge up front. The stylish full-size sedan was conceived of by the late Ferdinand Piëch as an answer to the luxobarges of the era, particularly the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. The Phaeton cuts a more elegant figure than most VWs, thanks to its graceful exterior lines and the use of premium materials throughout the cabin. It was also available with a gigantic 6.0-liter V-12 for two years that helped deliver the kind of drive expected from the class. — BH

Bentley is what it is today thanks to the second Mulsanne (the less said about the first, which was built between 1980 and 1992, the better). When the bold saloon arrived on the scene in 2010 it did so as the marque’s first independently developed model since the 8 Liter had debuted eight decades prior. The four-door’s statuesque shape, exquisite details, and lush interior helped the brand finally escape the shadow of its former owner and peer, Rolls-Royce. The Mulsanne also has the distinction of being the last car to feature Bentley’s 6.75-liter V-8, which was in production for a stunning six consecutive decades. The saloon would remain in production for a decade, during which time the automaker sold over 7,000 examples of the vehicle. — BH

Big, turbocharged power and self-leveling suspension is standard for luxury cars today. In the mid-’80s, with a price tag of over £80,000, it cost you more than a reasonably sized house. Given that Bentley kept this basic chassis and engine in production into the 2000s, it’s hard to imagine a time when it was new and dynamic. Is the styling conservative, or aristocratic? More than anything else, the Bentley Turbo R is funny. Turbocharging a car that uses chain-driven electric windows and has more wood in it than an Ikea living room set is pure comedy. — RO

Though Bentley made its name in motorsports, the 8 Litre never raced. The lovely giant was too big even for the endless straights at Le Mans, maybe for the world at large. A standard 8 Litre is so long that you could park an ‘80s Honda Civic between its two axles. But Bentley seemed incapable of making a sluggish car, and for all its grandeur, the 8 Litre was something like an upscaled version of its sporty 3-, 4 ½, and 6 ½-liter siblings. They handle as easily as they cruise over 100 miles per hour. They were so expensive ($9,000 for the nude chassis) that only 100 were ever built. — RO

Ettore Bugatti called his cars thoroughbreds. If yours didn’t start on a cold morning, that was no surprise. Simply drain the coolant and replace it with hot, distilled water. Then drain the oil and warm it on the stove before returning it to the engine and trying again. Bugatti, for his part, advised owners to maintain heated garages. He made the most successful racing cars in the world at the time and designed the most beautiful road cars to share their straight eights. The Type 57 was the last great Bug, and though it is best known for the low-chassis and supercharged versions, many were built as sedans as well. To own one was to sacrifice for one. — RO

Like other top-end cars of its day, the Bentley Speed Six used an overhead camshaft, but instead of using noisy gear drive, the Speed Six used an additional set of cams, with three thin connecting rods delicately running up the front of the engine. W.O. Bentley still personally ran the company back then, and he disliked mechanical noise. It wasn’t enough for his cars to be fast; they had to be refined as well. And the Speed Six was fast. Bentley won the 1929 24 Hours of Le Mans with one, returned with the exact same car, and won in ‘30, too. — RO

A millionaire today might own a Rolls-Royce for driving around town and a Ferrari for driving on the weekend. The H6 Hispano-Suizas were both at once. Nothing today is lavished with such extravagant design. Hidden inside an overhead-cam straight six, H6’s seven-bearing crankshaft was carved out of a 700-pound steel billet and weighed 90 pounds finished and polished. It was the car you took to the haute couturiers of Paris, cruised down to the boulevards of Biarritz, and, if you so desired, stripped off its lights and fenders and raced in the Targa Florio, as owners did on occasion. — RO

The Silver Ghost inscribed Rolls-Royce’s reputation into the history books. They were so tough that they were turned into armored cars in WWI, then hauled back out again to fight Hitler’s Afrika Corps 20-odd years later. Their hushed quiet was unmatched, their attention to detail legendary. Rolls kept a couple of Silver Ghosts around the factory just to test rear axles. Each new axle would get installed in a test car, run for 50 miles, then disassembled and honed by a team of “dentists,” who scraped off any rough spots. Once re-assembled and re-tested, if they made any noise, back out they went for another round. — RO

It took Rolls-Royce 10 years to develop the Silver Shadow, and it was a high-tech enterprise for the company. It got a monocoque chassis for the first time, independent and hydraulic suspension, as well as four-wheel disc brakes. This was a compact Rolls, meant to be easy to live with, not ostentatious. And it’s true. It didn’t have, say, gold door handles or a ceiling painted with cherubs, like you might find on a 1920s Phantom. But the Silver Shadow was the glam rock Rolls-Royce. Pop stars bought them, not aristocrats. It didn’t take up as much space as a swimming pool. You drove it into a swimming pool. — RO

Preston Tucker’s car was an ambitious but failed experiment, an unfortunate cocktail fueled by the inventor’s own hubris, ill-willed government bureaucracy, and Detroit’s blinkered automotive industrial complex. But the vision was grand: a rear-engined sedan designed with aerodynamic principles and safety top of mind. A 5.5-liter horizontally opposed, 6-cylinder helicopter engine mated to a TuckerMatic transmission drove the rear wheels. Occupants would benefit from added protection, with a padded dashboard and a central headlamp that turned with the front wheels for better illumination at night. Only 50 examples were completed in the year of production, with scarcely any two alike. As the Tucker 48 never realized a final specification, restorers are entrusted with unique relics that today, routinely fetch more than $1M when offered for sale. — RR

Made only from 1967-1969, the Ro 80 is nonetheless one of the most impactful cars of its era, prefiguring its designer Claus Luthe’s designs for Audi and the influential E30, E28, and E32 for BMW. Impressively aerodynamic, the Ro 80’s long wheelbase, spacious greenhouse, and elegant shape were enabled by the use of Felix Wankel’s compact rotary engine. Turbine-smooth and powerful, the rotary was also notoriously failure-prone due to unreliable rotor seals that ultimately doomed NSU—and the engine generally. A few more than 37,000 examples of the Ro 80 were built before Volkswagen took over the company in 1969, absorbing the brand under the Audi umbrella. — RR

Swiss carmaker Monteverdi, whose founder was a descendant of the Italian composer Claudio, built a handful of ambitious and costly models from 1967 until the company’s demise in 1982. Along with the coupes, convertibles, and radical mid-engined Hai, about 30 cars were the High Speed 375/4 model, an imposing four-door introduced in 1971 and built through 1976. The sober but elegant body was from Fissore of Italy; long as a dachshund, angular and intended to transport the driver, or chauffeur-driven passenger, in unbridled luxury. A hybrid long before the term applied to gas-electric powertrains, the Monteverdi used a 7.2-liter Chrysler V8 engine, and a 5-speed manual or 3-speed automatic transmission. Clients could order their High Speed with a Sony television and full cocktail bar in the back. — RR

From 1954-1964, the short-lived French luxury marque built stunning coupes and convertibles with a client list that read like a Who’s Who: Picasso owned one, Albert Camus died in one, and dozens of personalities, from Frank Sinatra and Ringo Starr to Stirling Moss and the Shah of Iran, drove a Facel. From 1958 through 1964, the four-door Excellence offered a $13,000 alternative to the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. Powered by a 5.4-liter, Chrysler V8 “Hemi” engine, it featured rear-hinged “suicide” doors (think Lincoln Continental) that eliminated the visually disruptive B pillar, albeit with resultant structural compromises. First and second-generation cars had a wrap-around windshield and tailfins recalling the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, while the third-generation design had softer lines all around. A mere 156 of all series were built. — RR

Launched in 1934, the 77 remains one of the most aerodynamic production automobiles ever made, along with modern peers like McLaren Speedtail and the Tesla Model S. It was powered by a rear-mounted, air-cooled, 3.0-liter V8 engine. Ferdinand Porsche, author of the VW Beetle, and Tatra’s Hans Ledwinka, often discussed a design for Hitler’s “People’s Car.” Tatra sued Volkswagen for copying its 1936 Type 97, litigation which was dropped when Germany took over the Tatra factory with the 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia. With exquisite irony, the tail-happy, unpredictable handling of the “Czech secret weapon” killed many German officers prone to taking corners at excessive speed. Only 249 Tatra 77 and 77a models were produced through 1938. — RR

Putting a competition engine in a luxury sedan was a novel concept when Maserati shoehorned the aluminum quad-cam V8 from their 450S race car into an elegant coach-built saloon. Designed by Pietro Frua and built by Vignale, the Quattroporte was presented in 1963 at the Turin Motor Show. The recipe was a success, with about 775 made throughout the production run. Series I cars, made through 1966, used a 4.2-liter engine and a De Dion rear end, while Series II cars, made from 1966-1969, used a leaf-spring solid rear axle, featured a redesigned interior, and ran with a 4.7-liter engine. The Series II Quattroporte was the world’s fastest sedan, with a claimed top speed of 158 mph. The name soldiered on, with the Quattroporte Series III (1979-1990) being the closest in spirit to the original. — RR

Though Cadillac built many good cars, nothing that it made in the ‘20s quite matched the grandeur of a Packard or Lincoln. Cadillac knew it needed something over the top, so it poached the head engineer from Marmon, who had been working on plans for the ultimate engine: a V-16. Packard, Hispano-Suiza, all of the greats may have had a V-12, but nobody had a 16. Cadillac kept the program a secret. All paperwork called it a bus or coach engine. When it debuted in 1931, there was nothing on the road that matched it. Few saw reason to follow. The engine alone weighed some 1,300 pounds. — RO

You only know the edge of a cliff when you go over it. The great automakers of the interwar years only learned how big was too big when one of them came up with a car too expensive for anyone to buy. Even in an era of kingdoms and duchies, nobody could afford a Bugatti Royale. Designed in 1926, it took until 1932 to deliver the first one, by which time the global economy had collapsed. Bugatti only completed seven cars and was left with 23 extra engines. Its 300 horsepower, 13-liter straight eight was so sizable that Bugatti built a train just so it had something to do with them. — RO

Its amorphous look is nothing to write home about—it reportedly only took two hours to design—but that doesn’t stop the first-generation BMW X5 from being great, or, at least, important. The German marque’s first people hauler, which debuted back in 1999, laid the groundwork for the ubiquitous mid-size luxury SUV of today. The vehicle’s roots can be traced back to BMW’s seven years as the owner of Land Rover. The E35 X5 may have some off-road capabilities, but it was designed, like its cousin, the 5-Series sedan, to be a sporting road vehicle (the most potent version, the 4.8is, makes a more than respectable 355 hp). The first X5 was far from the finished article, but it just might be the most influential Beemer of the last 25 years. — BH

Long before there were sports sedans or homologation specials or even muscle cars, there was the Hudson Hornet. It checked all the boxes: a low, underslung chassis, a high-output straight six, and sweet handling that was rewarded in stock car racing. (This was back when NASCAR raced stock cars.) Hudson was one of the last independent American automakers, and couldn’t quite compete with the Big Three. It threw all it had left into making the Hornet work, even though it was down two cylinders against its V-8 competition. Hudson pulled it off, even if the company only had a few years before it went bust. — RO

In 1958, Lincoln was on the rocks. Well-built but ugly cars had tanked sales, and losses totaled around $60 million. Ford’s shrewd boss, Robert McNamara, was ready to kill the nameplate altogether, facing another homely redesign approved for 1961. Only something radical could save Lincoln. And that was the suicide-door Lincoln Continental. Its styling study was initially meant for the two-door Ford Thunderbird. The only way to squeeze in those extra doors was to hinge them at the back, making that most iconic part of its design. — RO

Few superlatives don’t apply to the 8-liter “double six” Zeppelins built from 1931 to 1939. They were so powerful – drinking 13 quarts of oil and 30 of coolant – that four V-12s powered the eponymous Graf Zeppelin’s flight around the world in 1930. At 18 feet long and six feet wide, Zeppelins were so large that in Germany, you needed a trucker license to drive one. Regular licenses only got you up to two and a half tons. They were so technically advanced that their hydraulically operated gearbox had eight speeds, forward or reverse. What powered Porsche’s Tiger tanks? Maybach V12s and transmissions. — RO

At $14,000 for the bare chassis and likely $25,000 fully dressed, there were few cars as expensive in the interwar years as a Model J Duesenberg. Every bit as prestigious as a Rolls-Royce or Isotta-Fraschini, the American firm built among the most technologically advanced engines of its time, equal or greater to anything Europe produced, often beating them on the track. Fast as it was, the Model J didn’t feel like it. Overbuilt is an understatement, with frame rails 8 ½ inches deep. You might only notice its speed when you look down at the speedometer. — RO

The original Range Rover didn’t invent the idea of a luxury off-roader, but it perfected the formula. Land Rover sold that same basic SUV from 1970 through 1996, only tweaking it here and there over the years. Leather seats, air suspension, and anti-roll bars only dressed up the principle recipe. You got a V-8 up front, an upscale interior, and four-wheel drive to get you anywhere you needed to go. If that had to be the other side of Siberia, fine. If that was just to run your errands in town so people thought you had an estate in the country, that was no problem, either. — RO

When it came out, the 12-cylinder Jaguar XJ was not the greatest car in the world. That probably would have been the Mercedes 450 SEL. But that didn’t stop people from falling in love with the exuberant, stylish, flawed Jag. If yours overheats in LA traffic today, don’t worry; they did that when they were brand new. That huge V-12 up front nearly bankrupted Jaguar in its long and troubled development from a Le Mans racing engine to street tune. Maybe everyone has to suffer a bit for one. — RO

While only about a half-dozen were made, Voisin’s streamliner made a huge impact with its inimitable French Art Deco design. First shown at the 1934 Paris Auto Show, the C25 was a lightweight, fastback four-seater reflecting Voisin’s aviation-inspired roots. Unlike the sensuous French curves of luxury competitors like Delahaye, Delage, and Talbot, the slab-sided Aérodyne eschewed flamboyant form for minimalist, modernist lines the automotive equivalent of a Le Corbusier building (the architect himself owned a Voisin C-7). Still, refinement was not wanting; a novel sliding roof opened the entire top of the car, whose interior featured opulent fabric upholstery and Lalique ashtrays. — RR

The disco-era Batman would have driven an Aston Martin Lagonda, a cutting-edge design that led the folded-paper brigade along with the Lamborghini Countach, Lotus Esprit and DeLorean. The futuristic concept was designed by William Towns, and incorporated extreme bodywork with an opulent interior that showcased innovative—and failure-prone—digital instrumentation, most of which has been replaced by analog panels by subsequent owners. The design evolved over the course of 15 years with Series 2, 3 and 4 cars (Series 1 was a stretched Aston Martin coupe), the final series with more rounded corners and six rectangular headlamps replacing the novel pop-up design of the original. All featured Aston Martin’s 5.3-liter V8 engine that took the big bruiser to a top speed of 148 mph. The big Lagonda was far from a volume seller, with a total of only 645 built before production ceased in 1989. — RR

Mercedes of the ‘80s and ‘90s have a reputation for being overbuilt, and sturdier than they needed to be. This was put to the test when Mercedes contracted Porsche to stuff a hulking V8 into its midsize executive sedan. It fit, just. The differential was so large that Porsche had to take out the back middle seat. The resulting 500E was one of the best-handling, most powerful cars on sale. While its broadened fenders might have looked outrageous at the time (and were why Porsche had to play a part – the 500E was too wide for Mercedes’ full assembly line), the 500E now looks remarkably understated. It is a byword for quality-as-luxury, substance-as-style. — RO

Toyota kept busy during the boom years of the ‘80s. It developed the indestructible 2JZ straight six, built a working turbine car, and experimented with two-strokes. Its grandest venture was Lexus, and it spared no expense in its development. Toyota even rented houses in Laguna Beach and embedded staff to observe its target market. That might have been a lot of effort to make a car that mostly looked like a Mercedes, but the Lexus LS 400 was better built and higher quality. A few years after it went on sale, Japan’s bubble economy burst. We may never see projects on this scale again. — RO

At the very top of Toyota’s lineup, above everything from Lexus, even, sits the Century. The emperor rides around in one, for instance. Given that it’s almost exclusively built for domestic use, the Century presents an understated luxury. You don’t get a flashy grille or a bright leather interior, but you can get wool seats. Everything is plain but of the highest quality. For most of its history, the Century has made do with one of Toyota’s sublime V-8s. In the ‘90s, however, riding the last wave of the Bubble Era, Toyota developed its first V-12, the only production V-12 Japan has ever made. — RO

The myth of the Model S is that it was the first electric car that people wanted to buy. That’s not true. Plenty of people clamored for EVs before Tesla and protested GM killing off the EV1. The Model S was the first EV to be demonstrably better than its gas-powered rivals, as Tesla’s Supercharger network quickly made its Achilles heel – range – obsolete. At least in California. But as California goes, so goes the nation, and then the world. Oh, and the first top engineers at Tesla? Veterans of the EV1 project after GM mismanagement. — RO

There was a time, maybe briefly, when Mercedes unquestionably built the greatest car on the planet. It took its W116-chassis S-Class and stuffed it with a huge 6.9-liter V8. It wasn’t just a big engine, but a high-tech one, with aluminum heads, sodium-filled valves, and a dry-sump oil system that took 12 quarts. It had more power than a Ferrari and the world’s first production anti-lock brakes. The suspension was hydraulic, too, as smooth on the highway as on the race track. There have been faster luxury cars, and more advanced ones built since. But nothing was as ahead of everything else on the road as the 6.9. — RO

No car has possessed the arrogance of an Isotta-Fraschini. Their polished hoods stretched seven feet from the windshield to the grille, adorned with characteristic lightning bolts. They were brash for a reason. Under that hood was a straight eight (Isotta-Fraschini was the first to put one into production, just as it was with four-wheel brakes) of more than seven liters. Huge as they were, Isotta-Fraschinis couldn’t help but feel light to drive. The Italian company’s racing history in those grand early days was all but unmatched. — RO

Hand-assembled by BMW Motorsport, the first BMW M5 was based on the E28 5 Series, and made from 1984-1988. Stealthy in appearance, it was powered by the 3.5-liter M88/3 inline-6 engine shared by the M635 CSi. With 282 hp, it was the fastest production four-door car of its time. Even though North American buyers got a little less power, the M5 adjusted the thinking of those who looked askance at sedans, proving that a real hot rod might easily be lurking beneath the Clark Kent exterior. A 5-speed manual transmission made the M5 a real driver’s car, while the well-appointed, air-conditioned leather interior reminded driver and passengers that luxury and performance were not mutually exclusive traits. A mere 2,241 examples were built, making the first M5 the rarest of the lineage that continues today. — RR

Arguably the most advanced car of its time and most beautiful ever made (according to 20 of the world’s greatest designers polled in 2009), Citroen’s DS was 18 years in development when it hit the scene in 1955. About it, philosopher Roland Barthes said the DS “looked as if it had fallen from the sky,” so advanced was its aerodynamic design and the engineering that underpinned it. Front-wheel drive, disc brakes, and hydropneumatic suspension combined exemplary handling and safety with supreme comfort. In 1962, French president Charles de Gaulle survived a high-speed assassination attempt when gunmen killed his two motorcycle bodyguards, and blew out the car’s rear window and tires. Thanks to the car’s self-leveling suspension, De Gaulle’s chauffeur accelerated out of the skid and drove to safety on three wheels. Nearly 1.5 million examples were produced through 1975. — RR

The late Ian Cameron resurrected luxury automotive’s iconic marque when BMW acquired Rolls-Royce and assigned its design director the task of envisioning the future of the brand with a new flagship. The Phantom VII, made from 2003-2012, was the first salvo in a family of models distinguished by grand scale, subtle refinement, and a powerful V12 engine. The exterior was by Marek Djordjevic, its form respectfully acknowledging the company’s 100-year heritage while ushering Rolls confidently behind the velvet rope and into the 21st century. While the Phantom remains the standard-bearer, the Ghost, designed by Andreas Thurner and launched in 2009, broadened the reach of the marque called “The Best Car In the World.” — RR