The best American cars

20 October 2009

With the Americans finally building credible all-round sports cars, Adrian Hearn picks his five favourite.

America invented the muscle car.

The likes of Ford, Chevrolet and Pontiac became famous for its two door saloons with V8 engines, rear-wheel drive and a whole lotta attitude.

But our friends across the Atlantic also un-invented the corner which meant these brutish motors with awesome soundtracks were great on a straight but you needed Steve McQueen’s prowess to take one through a bend a speed.

For years this has been the case however everything has changed in recent times as the USA appears to be building some cracking performance cars.

Devon GTX

We won’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of Devon Motorworks – it’s a new company founded by a fella called Scott Devon who’s known in the states as a frozen food supplier. So far so bad.

However, Devon has assembled a crack team of individuals to build a bona fide supercar which uses an 8.4-litre V10 engine developing 650bhp.

Gallery: The Devon GTX

No performance figures have been released yet but the GTX is sub-4 second 0-62mph car which will be able to exceed 200mph.

And despite having that big engine out front, the GTX has been proved a nifty handler, setting an unofficial lap record at the Mazda Raceway aka Laguna Seca, beating the Nissan GT-R.

It’s going to cost a little more than the£56,000 Nissan GT-R with the GTX getting a £310,000 price-tag. Devon handed the GTX its official debut at this year’s Pebble Beach show in California, getting a fairly good reception considering this concourse is an event more targeted at 1930s car lovers.