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While most car manufacturers rate their cars in terms of raw engine power, in terms of overall performance (acceleration, braking, grip and handling) a car's weight is a more important factor. The power:weight ratio is a better way to quantify performance than the power of the engine. By this measure, the F1 is one of the most powerful production cars ever made. The F1 achieves 550 hp/ton, or just 4 lb/hp, while the Enzo (even with its significantly higher raw output) lags behind the F1 at 481.75 hp/ton (4.6 lb/hp) due to its greater weight.
0-60 mph 3.2 s
0-100 mph 6.3 s
0-200 mph 28 s
The Mclaren F1 has a top speed of 231 mph, restricted by the rev limiter at 7500 rpm. The true top speed of the Mclaren F1 was reached on the 31th of March, 1998 by the five-year-old XP5 prototype. Andy Wallace piloted it down the 9 km straight at Volkswagen's Ehra test track in Wolfsburg, Germany, setting a new world record of 391.1 km/h (243 mph) at 7800 rpm. As Mario Andretti noted in a comparison test, the F1 is fully capable of pulling a seventh gear, thus with a higher gear ratio or a seventh gear the Mclaren F1 would probably be able to reach an even greater top speed (something which can also be observed by noticing that the top speed was reached at 7800 RPM while the peak power is reached at 7400 RPM).
The title of "world's fastest production road car" is constantly in contention, especially because the term "production car" is not always well defined by the media. Critics of the F1 will point to the relatively tiny number of cars produced and the extremely high price and contend that a car available to so few is hardly a "production car".
Callaway's Sledgehammer Corvette, the road going version of the Dauer-Porsche 962 (winner of the 1994 24 hours of Le Mans as a GT) and most recently a version of the 911 Turbo produced by German tuner 9FF have all proven in testing that they're capable of top speeds matching or in excess of 240 mph, although none of them are considered production cars, and hence cannot displace the McLaren's "record". More recently, the Koenigsegg CCR recorded a speed of 388 km/h (241 mph), a record which has in turn been shattered by the Bugatti Veyron, with a top speed of 407 km/h (253 mph), although Koenigsegg hit back with the CCX, apparently capable of 250 mph (Bugatti Veyron is still faster). Both of these are considered to be production cars, and have therefore each beaten the McLaren's record.
As a sidenote, the 962 as well as the turbocharged version of Saleen's S7 and RUF's Rt 12 can hit 60 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds or less, meaning that even where certain cars (the Saleen and RUF) can't break the McLaren's top speed, they are capable of matching or beating its 0-60 time.
In response to this, however, designer Gordon Murray has repeatedly stated, usually in his column in Evo Magazine, that the F1 was never meant to break records, but rather perform as the ultimate driver's car, which it has done. The Autocar magazine also stated in their review (Autocar is the only car magazine who has ever done a road test/review on the McLaren F1.) that the McLaren F1 will remain the best supercar ever produced, which helps reinforce what Gordon Murray had said that the F1 isn't meant to break or set any speed records. Instead, he wants it to be the ultimate driver's car. An evidence of it being the ultimate driver's car is it's light weight. It weighs only 1138kg while the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 weighs a portly 1888kg. Gordon Murray's target for the McLaren F1 was a kerbweight of 1000kg (note that his primary target was weight, not speed records.), but ended up being 1138kg, an additional 138kg. He was disappointed at first, but nonetheless, that made it one of the lightest supercars in the market today.
