Supercars: Over 200 Exceptional Cars from 1980 to 2025
by Serge Bellu
“It is often unknown what becomes of the concepts that shine only for the duration of a motor show. What happens to the astounding promises and sales forecasts? Who is behind these extraordinary automobiles—the designers, engineers, manufacturers, craftsmen, and clients?
We try here to discern the truth, to know the true destiny of these dream objects, and to put names and realities behind the pronouncements.”
Speaking of names and realities: you may be able to guess the country of origin of the Tuthill, but what about an Aspark? Is there such a thing as a Mega Track? Does Canada produce supercars? Austria? Is Chunky Vazirani a real name? How about an easy one: of course you know there is a Mercedes SLR McLaren but what’s the “722 Edition” about?
Anyone who consumes car magazines should be able to rattle off a dozen supercar makers. If these two, which are practically mainstream, were no on your list, prepare to be surprised by this book.
Honest, now. How many did you get right? The fewer the more reason to take a look at this book! While it won’t help you find answers to the above questions, there is an Index—an anomaly for a European book, which this is, despite the Dalton Watson name on the cover of the English version.
The French original was published by Glénat, but they have two, with identical subtitles (200 voitures d’exception de 1980 à nos jours) but the 2023 release is called Supercars and the 2025 release Supercars 2e ED, meaning “deuxieme” as in second. Confusingly for hasty folk, the 2025 English version uses the cover of the 2023 French one. Yes, yes, tedious detail but collectors of the future will be glad for it.
Data sets enumerate power, top speed, acceleration, production numbers. While the texts are brief, they contain the essential talking points. Red type on black background? Nice in theory, but . . .
To return to the opening quote, the author has kind of set himself an impossible task because many of those questions, especially about clients and destiny or even craftsmen really have no answers in the public sphere. What the book does very well is be a quick survey of the scene over time. Unless you are a car designer you will make many discoveries here. And even if you are and know such esoteric things as which car was assembled in Uusikaupunki (or where that even is!) you’ll be wildly amused by the author’s candor when he observes that while “not truly beautiful, the B2 had the merit of originality” and that “its financing inspired the most cautious reservations.” Serge Bellu can say such things with authority because who would argue with the editor-in-chief of L’Année Automobile since 2009 (before that Automobiles Classiques), author of dozens of design-focused car books, and consultant to the automotive industry on design and heritage? And as an illustrator he can dash off a highly technical drawing with the same aplomb as a coachwork sketch.
As you would deduce from the subtitle, the English subtitle that is, 45 years of cars are on offer. Their coverage is preceded by a Prologue of several pages that takes us back to the 1930s. The cars are presented by decade, obvious enough. Not so obvious is that they are not in alpha order by make but in order of date of reveal which is either very clever (to a subset of a subset of concept car geeks) or oddly arbitrary. Again, the Index is your true guide here. Five sidebars single out three cars per decade that represent the highest “achievement” in certain categories—speed, rarity, power [below], vividness (?), price.
The press release calls the book “ambitious and comprehensive” and it is that. Considering a low MSRP (€39.95 for the French edition) there’s no intelligent reason to ignore it. Oh, of the photos it is said that many are rare and previously unpublished (none are credited) but all we can say is that they are certainly not widely circulated, and that their reproduction here is much better than anything you find on the internet.
Left page: a hallowed classic name; right page: a newcomer, but consider this: the sainted Walter de Silva was a design consultant on the Chinese S9.
Copyright 2026, Sabu Advani (speedreaders.info).
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