From Bugatti to Lamborghini: The Petersen Museum’s New Exhibition Showcases Hypercar Extremes

When describing the outer reaches of automotive achievements, the superlatives come easy: ultra, super, hyper and so on. But a flock of truly extreme vehicles is worthy of a show—or as the Petersen Automotive Museum offers, the recently updated Hypercars 2: The Allure of the Extreme exhibition.

Citing the fact that the term “supercar” first appeared in the 1920s, the show description points out that while the modern usage of the phrase was inspired by the Lamborghini Miura four decades later, it wasn’t until 2005’s Bugatti Chiron that the 21st-century implementation of “hypercar” became truly apt thanks to its 200-plus mph top speed, 1,000-plus hp, relative rarity and $1 million-plus cost of entry.

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The Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport is front and center among the 14 featured vehicles, but the 1,479 hp two-seater is easily the most mainstream of the offerings. Similarly familiar: the $3 million Lamborghini Sian FKP 37 V-12 hybrid.

Veering slightly off-center is the 2015 Koenigsegg ONE:1, whose 1:1 horsepower-to-kilogram ratio enables an estimated top speed of 273 mph. The carbon fiber Swede was noted for its groundbreaking biofuel-powered 5.0-liter V-8, though at first blush it is not dramatically visually different from the Agera.