Article by:
Amelia Grant
The theater always starts with a coat rack, children with a kiss, and the automotive industry with the car itself. Recent years have been rich in crises, diesel gates, recall campaigns, and takeovers, but these cars still remained the main characters
If you want to buy or lease a car, you should nbe sure that the vehicle you choose is safe and reliable. Even though most car manufacturers claim that their cars are the best of the best, it is not always true. In this article, we have gathered the top 10 most important cars of the 21st century
1. Rolls-Royce Phantom
Unlike the relatively mainstream Bentleys and the failed Maybach, the Rolls-Royce Phantom looks like an example of a proper reboot of the brand and a revival of the spirit of the old aristocracy.
Despite the fact that many parts of the limousine, from the body to the engine, are produced in Germany, nothing so sublime and expensive has been created so far. Phantom, meanwhile, will soon celebrate its fifteenth birthday without a replacement. But is she really needed at all?
2. Nissan GT-R
Two propeller shafts - carbon fiber, leading to the rear gearbox, and steel, connecting the front wheels. The body structure is made of steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber. And most importantly - crazy dynamics.
The Nissan GT-R is not just a billion-dollar engineering manifesto like the Bugatti Veyron, but a signal that Nissan, after colossal losses and a merger with Renault, is ready to fight not only the Toyota RAV4 but also the Porsche 911 Turbo.
3. Porsche Cayenne
Technically, the first-generation Porsche Cayenne hardly presented any engineering surprises - the common platform with the Volkswagen Touareg did not allow this project to distinguish itself, but with the Turbo S prefix it turned into the fastest SUV in the world.
In addition, the very combination of design, speed, and legendary name turned it into a phenomenon, a phenomenon, and soon made Porsche the most profitable car brand in the world.
4. Renault Logan
Henry Ford managed to make both a secretary from New York and a farmer from Cincinnati into car drivers with his "Tin Lizzie" globalization. The first budget car of the new era could have been the Fiat Palio, but the Renault Logan was more successful both as a car and as a market product.
Renault chief designer Patrick le Quitman even called it his best work and was hardly lying - the beauty of the first generation Logan is closer not to Michelangelo's David, but to a Kalashnikov assault rifle because each line here is justified by functionality and price. As well as its design: this car, perhaps for the first time in history, was developed with the aim of making it as cheap as possible not only in its production but also in subsequent maintenance and repair.
5. Bugatti Veyron
Obviously, the Bugatti Veyron could have turned out not so heavy and surgically cold, but the lack of charisma here is more than compensated for by the numbers: the first version has 1001 horsepower and 252 miles per hour. The Veyron was dubbed a hamburger for its body shape but was praised for its combination of incredible power and ease of handling rivaling a Volkswagen Golf. All you had to do to accelerate to 248 miles per hour was a license and a million euros.
Michelin special tires could last only 16 minutes at top speed and could run out of fuel even earlier. Having devoured about a billion euros of investments, this project seems to have fulfilled all its goals, except financial. But now we know what happens when the energy of Ferdinand Pich, the capabilities of huge concern, and the classic superbrand converge at one point.
6. Nissan Qashqai
The story of this car began in the Nissan negotiation room, where employees had to deal with a loss-making plant in Sunderland, which produced the European Almera. It was necessary to either reduce the price of a hatchback, which was not profitable, and increase production volumes, or raise the price to uncompetitive in order to recoup costs. It turned out to be a vicious circle.
As a result, they came up with the idea to increase the ground clearance of an ordinary passenger car and make a crossover out of a hatchback. The cost of production remained practically unchanged, while the profit rate increased - the buyer understood what he was paying for the added value. The Nissan Qashqai, which replaced Almeria, became not just a bestseller, but a symbol of the incipient crossover boom, which continues to this day.
7. Volkswagen Golf VII
If there is a car that fully reflects Volkswagen's greatness, it is, of course, the Golf. One of the most successful series in the automotive industry and the epitome of total unification and the victory of modular platforms. According to some estimates, Volkswagen has invested about 70 billion euros in the MQB platform, but it will probably earn several times more from this. Like it or not, the Golf VII is today the global benchmark for the modern urban hatchback - from build quality and subcompact turbo engines to chassis tuning.
8. Mercedes CLS
Fireworks and fanfare were not thundering around the Mercedes-Benz CLS, but technically it was an elongated E-class platform, on which a two-piece evening suit was pulled. But this car has done much more for automotive history than just graced the streets of cities. The CLS effortlessly added a couple of extra doors to the coupe's elegance, and the concept was followed by everyone from the Volkswagen Passat CC to the BMW X6. And they continue to do so to this day.
9. BMW i8
The BMW i8 is worth the money, it rides amazingly and looks no worse at the gas station than the McLaren P1 at the Fairmont Hotel in Monte Carlo. And most importantly, this car gave us back the confidence that battery-powered sports cars are not an analog of a rubber woman, but a huge step forward.
The whistle and locomotive traction of the electric motor from the very bottom gives a new sense of dynamics, and recharging from the mains and energy recovery during braking is a welcome addition. Descending down the mountain pass in our test of eights, the BMW 850 CSi continued to burn its one-liter tank, while the i8 only increased its range - nothing like that fifteen years ago could not have been thought of.
10. Tesla Model S
Moving from online payment services to launch vehicles, Elon Musk showed that an electric car can also become a successful startup, capable of stirring up an entire industry with a century of history. Tesla has become not just the most massive and most talked about the electric car, but an element of the image and an important event in popular culture.
The low center of gravity and colossal torque of electric motors made the Tesla Model S P85D a competitor to well-equipped sedans and even supercars. It is under the wheels of such machines that the Earth rotates, while other companies offer several all-around cameras with poor resolution under the guise of new technologies.