7 Supercars Of The 90s That Deserve More Recognition

Bugatti EB110 SS

Famously purchased by Michael Schumacher back in 1994, the EB110 Super Sport was one of the true icons of the 90s, continuing Bugatti’s reputation for ultimate engineering which still exists to this day. Production ended swiftly due to the company going bankrupt with the owner making the rash call to purchase Lotus, making the EB110 SS a true unicorn in the world of second-hand supercars.

With a seemingly tiny 3.5-litre V12, the EB110 started Bugatti along the route of quad-turbocharging, giving the car a monstrous top speed of 217mph. The EB110 SS was one of the fastest machines around with 650bhp coursing through all four wheels giving a 0-60mph time of just 3.2 seconds. The SS models were also lighter as well as more powerful than the original EB110 and fetch around £600,000 at auction in the current market.

Jaguar XJ220

Considering the ultimate Jag hypercar was destined to have a huge V12 as its powerplant, it must have been rather disappointing for the motoring journalists of the period to find out that the production car would have the engine from the MG Metro 6R4 instead. However, slap a couple of stupidly large turbochargers onto the 3.5-litre V6 and suddenly you had what was briefly the fastest production car on the planet.

Topping out at 212.3mph, the Jag which went on sale in 1992 was almost immediately surpassed by the McLaren F1. Although, to the car’s credit, it did hold the Nurburgring track record all the way to the year 2000, with a 7:46.36 lap. Many comparisons are made between the XJ220 and the Ferrari F40 due to the heavy turbocharging making progress below 3000rpm extremely average. Give the Jag time to spool up however, and it could take off down the road like nothing Jaguar has ever produced since.

Despite the potential of the CX-75 concept car, it doesn’t look like JLR will be going anywhere near producing a supercar replacement for the ‘220 anytime soon.

Ferrari F50

Often seen as the slower, uglier brother of the esteemed F40, the F50 has aged unbelievably well in the last couple of decades, with values starting to sky-rocket over £1 million. It seems to be the Ferrari hypercar that has been pushed to the back of cupboard with the herbs and spices, never to be seen again or thought about.

The F50 was built using knowledge gleaned from Ferrari’s motor racing activities, and therefore has a mid-mounted, F1-derived V12 to play with, along with a manual transmission. The 4.7-litre engine produces 520bhp which propels the car to just over 200mph, and many recent road tests of the Ferrari hypercars have shown that the F50 may actually be a better driver’s car than the seemingly untouchable F40.

TVR Speed 12

Can you imagine what a car weighing 1100kg with 900bhp must feel like to drive? TVR launched the Cerbera Speed 12 in 1996 aiming to take on the GT1 class at Le Mans and potentially steal the production car top speed record from McLaren. Splicing two Cerbera straight-sixes together, the Speed 12 was said to have snapped a 1000 horsepower-rated dyno input shaft when testing its power output, which was in turn ‘guessed’ to be over the stated 900bhp figure.

The car never actually made it to Le Mans due to rule changes and during production for road car use, the owner of TVR took a test mule home and decided it was just too lairy for customers to consider driving one on the public roads. Only one Speed 12 was ever commissioned for road-use - using leftover parts from the aborted racing programme - and is still with its original owner. At 7700cc, the TVR Speed 12 is the definition of no replacement for displacement.

Lamborghini Diablo VT

Every range-topping Lambo of the 21st Century has been V12 and all-wheel drive, and it can traced back to the iconic Diablo VT. With the Diablo replacing the Countach of the 1980s, the car was much more performance-orientated as a package and was the last supercar built solely by the Italian outfit before Audi took over the reins.

VT stands for ‘viscous traction’ which refers to the trick differential used to introduce four-wheel drive to the already potent supercar. This system made the car much more predictable once being driven hard, a characteristic that most of its contemporaries were missing. The Lamborghini engineers really went to town with this variation of the supercar, enhancing cooling and braking to make the Diablo a serious contender in the hectic 90s performance car market.

Honda NSX-R

It’s often claimed that the standard NSX was actually a bit of a softy in supercar terms but with the Nissan Skyline and Toyota Supra dominating the Japanese domestic racing scene, Honda decided it was time to give its flagship supercar a dose of hardcore. Thus was born the NSX-R, shedding a massive 120kg from the standard car and cutting the 0-60mph time by 1.3sec to a much more inspiring 4.4 seconds.

Despite only bringing 276bhp to the table, the NSX-R combined a stiffer racing suspension setup with a specially designed Honda racing crankshaft assembly to surpass the stock NSX and propel the limited edition variant to near unicorn status.

Jaguar XJR-15

Due to spending far too much money on supercar projects and not enough on its mass-produced motors, the 90s was a golden age for Jaguar in terms of crazy, spiky supercars. The lesser-known XJR-15 was essentially an XJR-8 Le Mans racer but with the first ever full-carbonfibre body ever produced. Staying well away from its turbocharged XJ220 sibling, the XJR-15 used a massive 6.0-litre, 450bhp V12 in a vehicle that weighed just over a tonne.

The racecar on which it was based had a specially designed ground effect body which culminated in scarily fast cornering speeds, but the modified roadcar had its ride height raised for everyday convenience, ruining the aerodynamics of the car’s underside and making it an extremely unstable car on the road. Sudden spikes of oversteer were common so owners soon consigned their cars to garages as investments due to the fear of sliding their V12 racers off into a field. They did look awesome though.

Have we missed any cars that tickled your fancy in the 90s? Comment below if we forgot any!