The machines that
redrew their decade.

The first car with an electronically controlled all-wheel-drive system, automatic tire pressure monitoring, and a 0 to 60 time of under 3.5 seconds. You are probably thinking this was created in the 2000s, or that it is a Lamborghini you see on the streets today. But no. This was the early 1980s, and Porsche came out with the 959.

The McLaren F1, a car with the first carbon fiber cockpit, and the same reflective gold lining they used to get us to the moon. You would think it was a race car, but this is a road legal supercar that broke the record of every car that came before it.

The McLaren F1, the Porsche 959, the Lamborghini Countach, and the Bugatti Veyron. They all represent a decade. From the 1970s to the 2000s, they show what defined the modern supercar. They exemplify the design elements and technology that we still strive for today, the records that were set, the ambitions that were met. They each had their own definition of what a supercar was supposed to be, and they met it and exceeded it, and that is why we are talking about them.

The 1970s with the Countach, talking about the drama and the presence this car has, redefining the shape that everybody thinks of when they picture a modern supercar. The 1980s with the extreme technology and pure ambition that the Porsche 959 brought to the table. Then the 1990s with the McLaren F1, a car built and inspired by racing and design with unlimited budget and ambition, a car that met and exceeded every expectation and held its record for a decade. Then came the successor, the Bugatti Veyron, a feat of engineering, pure adrenaline, and excellence. It beat the McLaren F1's record, but only after 18 months and many failed attempts, proving that this was a car that truly showed what happens when ambition outlasts doubt. With every car came a peak expression of the time period it came from.

Every car we are talking about here had a specific person behind it with an obsession for creating something so great and so powerful that they could not be stopped. Gandini with the Lamborghini Countach, the Porsche engineering team, Gordon Murray, and Ferdinand Piech. They were all told at some point that it was impossible and that it would not be done. But they overcame that, whether it was proving to Lamborghini that the prototype could survive a drive to Sicily and back, or rebuilding an entire engineering team with 95 percent new people in 18 months on the Veyron. They specifically proved that throughout each era, a supercar could be pushed even further when it seemed like there was nowhere left to go, and they all left behind something that is still looked at and built upon today.

This exhibit explores how each of these cars really did shape their decades, not just as a landmark moment in car history, but as history itself. A vehicle that tells you about the era it came from, the technology it introduced, the design it inspired, the status it carried, and the people who dedicated everything to bringing it to life.