What is the best car of the 21st century? It’s not an easy question to answer, but as the calendar counts down to 2025 we thought we’d have a go at finding the answer.
The challenge is defining what makes a car great and how do you narrow it down across the entire breadth of the car industry – from electric city cars to wildly powerful hypercars. Since 2000 there have been some many important and impactful new cars that have helped shape and define not only what we’re driving today but what we’ll be driving in the next 25 years.
With that in mind we’ve taken a look back at all the great cars of the 21st century and compiled this list. It’s by no means meant to be definitive, and will have a clear Australian bias, but this is the line-up we landed on.
Each day this week we’ll publish five entries in our list, counting down to the big reveal on Friday. Let us know your thoughts – what’s your favourite car of the last 25 years?
25. 2011 Nissan Leaf
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, electric vehicles are here to stay. And in large part that’s thanks to the Nissan Leaf. It wasn’t the first all-electric vehicle on the market, but when it launched in 2011 it did become the first series production EV. It proved that EVs could be a viable alternative for those looking for something ‘cleaner and greener’ for their motoring needs.
24. 2017 Hyundai i30 N
Hyundai has produced three generations of its i30 hatchback in the past 25 years and while all have been a move closer to its European rivals in terms of quality, it’s the third-generation that arrived in 2016 that really changed things for the South Korean brand.
That’s because it was the platform for its first proper performance model, the 2017 i30 N hot hatch. This was years in the making, beginning with the company’s announcement it would join the World Rally Championship in 2014. The i30 N proved to be the catalyst for a major change in the way the brand is perceived and has been followed up by the i30 Sedan N, Kona N, i20 N and Ioniq 5 N; the latter of which will lead the brand into its electric future.
23. 2007 Nissan GT-R
While it left Australian showrooms in 2021, remarkably the GT-R is still in production in Japan, which is scheduled to continue until sometime in 2025. That will make it 18 years old by the time the final example rolls off the production. Purely in terms of longevity the GT-R deserves a place on this list, but it has made the cut for so many more reasons than just its age.
The R35 generation of the iconic ‘Godzilla’ made a huge impression when it first arrived, looking more like a Japanese muscle car than any of its predecessors. It packed a punch from its twin-turbo V6, had amazing grip from its all-wheel drive and put Nissan in the same conversation as Porsche and Ferrari.
22. 2010 Lexus LFA
Lexus is best known for making very sensible luxury cars and SUVs, but to celebrate its 20th anniversary it decided to suddenly make one of the world’s most iconic supercars. The company spent more than five years developing the LFA, leaning on its Formula 1 team of the time in order to make an incredibly technologically advanced and very fast machine.
While its front-engine layout makes it look more like a grand tourer, the LFA features all the key attributes of a supercar. It’s built around a carbon fibre tub and powered by a 4.8-litre V10 engine that made 412kW and 480Nm.
Only 500 examples were made across a two year span, but the LFA has left an indelible mark on 21st century motoring.
21. 2012 Volkswagen Golf
Like the Nissan Leaf, the Golf Mk7 isn’t an amazing car in isolation but rather its wider impact on the automotive world. That’s because underneath its conservative hatchback body sat the MQB architecture that would help transform the industry.
MQB (or Modularer Querbaukasten to give it its German name, or ‘Modular Transversal Toolkit’ in English) was a flexible vehicle platform that allowed Volkswagen Group to scale it up and down depending on the model and therefore share it across a huge array of models. This saved billions and allowed for the development of a range of new options as diverse as the Volkswagen Golf and smaller Polo all the way up to the Passat wagon and Atlas large SUV, and across multiple Audi, Skoda and Seat models as well.
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