This crowdfunded attempt to bring the fastest production car record back to the U S of A in 2017 saw a Dodge Viper ACR, supplied from a Texas dealership, lap the Green Hell in 7:01.30 in the hands of Lance Arnold, before tyre failure (it was on street legal tyres) on the second lap put an end to further attempts. Still a hugely impressive effort nonetheless.
*20,600m lap (Only in 2019 did the ’Ring start officially verifying lap record attempts, with a full lap of the 20,832m Nordschleife required)
Ferrari famously doesn’t give an (official) toss about flinging its cars around the ’Ring, so it was left to Christian Gebhardt and German sport auto magazine to set this time in the 488 Pista back in 2019. It’s a real shame Ferrari won’t play nicely – imagine what the marque’s full technical team and its bottomless pockets could do…
*20,600m lap
The Aventador SV squeaked into the elite sub-seven minutes gang when it managed 6m 59.73s in 2015, helped by a diet that saw around 50kg of weight shredded thanks to the use of carbon fibre door and sill panels, as well as stripping the carpet, sound deadening, and even the stereo in the name of lightness. A noble sacrifice indeed.
Shortly after it hit 308mph to become the fastest production car on the planet in 2025, the Yangwang briefly became the fastest electric production car around the Nürburgring with a time of 6m 59.15s. That’ll be the combined 2,959bhp from its four electric motors – each of which can spin up to 30,000rpm – in a car that weighs 2.5 tonnes. Woah.
Ferrari’s current production car record holder around the Nürburgring is the 296 GTB, which recorded a time of 6m 58.70s in 2023. That was in the hands of that man again, Christian Gebhardt, while the car was also equipped with the Assetto Fiorano package, which shaves off around 12kg from the 1,470kg dry weight. Every little helps…
*20,600m lap
The Porsche 918 Spyder set a landmark record around the Nürburgring when it became the first street legal production car to break the seven-minute barrier back in 2015. Driver Marc Lieb knocked 14 seconds off the Gumpert Apollo Sport’s time at an average speed of 112mph, securing his and the car’s place in what was back then a very exclusive club.
*20,600m lap
The 911 GT3 RS became the third production Porsche to break the seven-minute barrier when it recorded 6m 56.4s in 2018 – some 24 ( twenty-four! ) seconds faster than the previous GT3 RS model could manage. That was in the hands of Porsche works race driver Kévin Estre, who went head-to-head with Porsche development driver Lars Kern to set the fastest lap – with their combined four laps reportedly only tenths of a second apart.
*20,600m lap
Ahead of its official debut at the 2017 Geneva International Motor Show Marco Mapelli took the camouflage-liveried Performante around the Nordschleife in under seven minutes, thanks to a new ‘Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva’ active aero system and a 40kg weight reduction over the standard Huracán. That’s one way to get everyone’s attention. Lambo’s press department led with its 6m 52.01s time afterwards, but that was over the 20,600m lap. It did also release the full lap time, so that’s what we’ve gone with here.
In 2025 Porsche set a new record for the fastest production car with a manual gearbox around the ’Ring in its latest 911 GT3 – a full 9.5s faster than the Dodge Viper ACR (which, as alluded to above, set its time around the shorter loop too). Jörg Bergmeister’s lap was also 3.6s quicker than the previous gen 992.1 GT3 with an auto gearbox. Some talent.
In April 2024, Porsche sent a Taycan Turbo GT equipped with the Weissach Package around the Green Hell in a time of 7m 07.55s. Two years later it returned with a Taycan Turbo GT fitted with a new Manthey Kit and smashed that time by twelve entire seconds. It was also nine seconds quicker than the production-spec Xiaomi SU7 Ultra, meaning Porsche reclaimed its title of fastest 'electric executive car'.
Not the first and not the last time you’ll see a Porsche 911 with a Manthey Kit on this list. Seven months after Porsche sent its new GT3 around the ’Ring, it returned with another dressed up by the German racing team turned tuner and recorded a time of 6m 52.981s, shaving three seconds – light years in the motorsport world – off its previous best time.
The best of British – or at least Britain’s best effort to date – set a blistering time of 6m 52.70s in 2009, though it wasn’t without controversy . The car divided opinion on whether it had stretched the production car definition a little too far to be considered a proper contender, but hey – it’s got a passenger seat and everything, so that definitely makes it a legit street car in our eyes.
In 2024, the Ford Mustang GTD became the first American car to dip below seven minutes, and it then returned in April 2025 with an improved time of 6m 52.072s. Chevrolet has since stolen its American-spec crown – as we’ll get to – though in April 2026 Ford recorded 6m 40.8s in a pre-production GTD Competition. As Ford CEO Jim Farley said, game very much on…
Back in 2017, Porsche’s then-VP of motorsport and GT, Frank-Steffen Walliser, said that he’d be perfectly happy if this car lapped the Nordschleife in the ballpark of 7m 5.0s. Chopping 14 seconds off it, then? Quite the achievement. The then-fastest and most powerful road-legal 911 averaged 114mph on its way to setting the milestone.
A mere couple of months after Ford set the American production car Nürburgring lap record in 2025 in the GTD, Chevrolet one-upped it with a time of 6m 50.76s in the ZR1. It was helped by a ZTK track-focused package bringing improved aerodynamics, suspension and tyres as it responded to Ford in emphatic fashion.
Lamborghini held the Nürburgring production car record for two years when it set a time of 6m 49.42s in the Aventador SVJ back in 2018 – until the Merc AMG GT Black Series came along and stole its crown. Our own Ollie Marriage described it as “composed” when he tested the same record-setting model later that year. Ha!
In 2022 Porsche took its then new 911 GT3 RS to the Green Hell and set a time of 6m 49.32s – over 10 seconds quicker than the ‘standard’ GT3. Essentially a full blown racecar with numberplates, it develops twice as much downforce as its predecessor – helped by a huge swan neck rear wing that sits higher than the roofline.
The fastest American production car to lap the ’Ring is currently the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X, and they didn’t even use a professional driver – Chevy vehicle dynamics engineer Drew Cattell whipped the ZR1X around the track so furiously in June 2025, he’s now the quickest non-pro at the Nürburgring. We tip our hat, sir!
The Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series got one over the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ (2018) and Porsche 911 GT2 RS (2017) when it managed a time of 6m 48.04s round the Green Hell in 2020 in the hands of German racing driver Maro Engel. Mercedes also said the track was “not yet totally dry” – so it could have gone even quicker still.
In April 2026 Porsche returned to the ‘Ring with another 911 GT3 RS, only this time equipped with a Manthey Kit consisting of major aero, suspension and brake upgrades – the most obvious being that simply ginormous DRS-equipped rear wing. Careful, or it’ll have your head off. Anyway, the result? A nearly four second improvement. Wow.
Further proof, as if it were needed, that Manthey is rather good at what it does. Porsche bettered its previous result in the 911 GT2 RS set in 2017 courtesy of a Manthey Kit including a new rear spoiler, modified diffuser and aerodiscs on the rear wheels. The resulting lap time was eight seconds quicker than the ‘standard’ GT2 RS.
The only production car to break sub-6:30 – and sub-6:40 for that matter – is the Mercedes-AMG One. Merc achieved the feat in October 2024 when it beat its first record set in 2022 by over six seconds, helped by ‘perfect’ conditions (20°C track and 15°C air). You can remind yourself of that lap and behold Engel nailing it by clicking these blue words here.
