Having just spent the past 52 minutes (well, call it two hours because of interruptions and having to rewind because of multi-tasking) watching Chris Harris and Co. track the three most advanced hyper cars in the world today, we feel a little slack, a little drained, and a little like after the first time we saw Star Wars as a kid.
For those of you who don’t know, there is a hierarchy of cars in order of how fun they are to drive:
Economy cars
Regular cars
Sports cars
Super cars
Hyper cars
There is some debate about overlap among those categories, or where you place subsets such as minivans, SUVs, and crossovers, but those are the general buckets.
Chris Harris is the man to decide because he is still very much that kid who has just seen Star Wars for the first time. There are lots of people on YouTube who drive cars, and until recently, there were even the fellows on Top Gear across the pond. Harris is one of the best, and we have no idea how he got these cars given that a) he doesn’t have a show, and b) he’s not that famous.
The reason we can call this the best car video of 2015 is because the cars are so amazing and the video is so long. At 52 minutes, it strains the limits of how much you can test the attention span of your viewers. Given a bit more time, it could even count as a full-length movie. It’s terrific.
But even better than the video are the cars. Here’s a short write-up on each:
Porsche 918 – This is currently the best car that Porsche makes, which is saying something. It contains all of their wildest ideas and most innovative engineering. It has top mounted exhaust ports, 887 horsepower, costs $845,000, and is legal to drive on the streets. It can also run on purely electric power if needed, making it the quietest of the three. It is the heaviest of the three cars and features the most sophisticated computer systems.
Ferrari’s LaFerrari – Everyone has probably seen a red Ferrari in a movie at some point for a simple reason: nothing else says exotic and Italian like a Ferrari. It has the most amazing sound of the three when revved from a standstill—it actually sounds like an animate, living being. The price is $1,420,000, and it will probably hold its value better than the other two given that the world’s most expensive cars ($52 million for the best) are all Ferraris. With bodies that sculpted, we get it. We totally get it.
McLaren P1 – McLaren is a name less well known than the others. Nonetheless, the P1 totally deserves its spot. It sits the lowest to the ground, which gives it an advantage as it hoovers over every corner. It’s also the only one that’s not legal to drive on public streets—it was built exclusively for the track. It’s the only one with a turbocharged engine, and its V8 has that fattened, ear-splitting sound that you probably associate with muscle cars. We think it sounds the best of the three while driving. The price? $1,350,000.
After the video starts with a sunrise shot that Harris’s team clearly spent all morning waiting for, there’s a fair bit of time spent on tires, which, to we normal folk, is pretty boring. If you’re a car enthusiast, however, you know that much of a car’s performance comes down to the rubber it leaves on the road.
Tires sorted, Harris gives each car a dash-cam lap on the track, then invites two buddies to bring all three to race, letting the three jaw-dropping hyper cars drift, slide, and sprint around each other like the most glorious dance of hummingbirds imaginable.
As we said, 52 minutes can sound like a long time, but once you start realizing how much thought went into the camerawork, how intelligently the music accompanies the action on screen, and what a treat it is seeing the three finest cars in existence having it out in front of you—well, you realize what a special video this is.
Easily the best piece of car culture we’ve seen all year. Like you, we drive regular cars. We pick up groceries, drive to work, take trips, and haul people and things. Despite the appliance-like appreciation we have for our own cars, hyper cars remind us what our vehicles aspire to be when they’re dreaming in the garage or in their parking spot.
10/10