Sometimes beauty is about looks. Sometimes it's about sheer performance, and presence. So when you take a basic Volkswagen, soup it up, add some wheels and stripes, and create the template for every hot hatchback ever since, the result is a formidable, historic car—and, in its own weird way, a very functional sort of beauty.
24. 1965 Aston Martin DB5
To simply say that it's James Bond's most famous car would be to overlook why Her Majesty's secret agent chose it in the first place: the DB5 had the performance and the bespoke Italian coachwork to take the hallowed spot of the coolest car of the coolest character in cinematic history.
23. Delorean DMC-12
There's a reason this was the platform of choice for Marty McFly and Doc Brown's experiments in temporal dislocation: the Delorean was the only car so futuristic that it could travel into the past. Whether it was a good modern car is another question entirely. But in the movies, at least, looks are allowed to count for everything.
22. 1937 BMW 328 Roadster
The gorgeous 328 never debuted at some press event or auto show. It was unveiled on the track, Germany's legendary Nürburgring—and handily won its first race right then and there. It then won Italy's famed Mille Miglia, a race won only thrice by non-Italians, despite possessing 90 less horsepower than the Alfa that won the year before. The 328, then, set the precedent for lightweight, balanced engineering that has inspired Bimmers and much else ever since. We owe it much.
21. 1972 Plymouth 'Cuda
It's a square-jawed, big-haunched muscle car that looks best in lime green. Eat your heart out, every car ever made in Europe.
20. 1966 Mercedes Benz 230SL
This is a roadster of the Germanic variety: big, heavy, laden with metal, and eminently reliable. Different strokes for different folks, so long as we all love cruising, top down, under eternally blue skies.
19. Lancia Aurelia
Lancia knew a thing or two about design. They also knew about innovation, too: the Aurelia used the first production V6 in automotive history. Reliability…well, that's another story. But like with every genius we know, we tended to overlook the little faults in light of the bigger picture.
18. Pagani Zonda F
If you mounted wheels and rocket thrusters on a wedge of cheese, it would look like the Zonda. And in the world of mental hypercar design, that ranks as the highest brand of compliment.
17. Alfa Romeo 8C
Take a powertrain developed by Ferrari and Maserati, dump it into an Alfa-designed body, and you have what is perhaps the most stunning car designed this side of 1970. Who says cars don't have curves anymore?
16. Bugatti Type 41 Royale
At 21 feet long, it is one of the largest and most ostentatious cars ever built. But even the kings of Europe could hardly justify such a purchase during the Great Depression, so only six were ever made. In another time, it would have become a legend.
15. Jaguar XKSS
The road-going version of Jaguar's spectacular, thrice Le Mans-winning D-Type race car, Steve McQueen owned an XKSS, and called it the "Green Rat." It is small and fast and green, but it certainly doesn't look mangy.
14. Aston Martin DB9
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the fact that every model Aston has built since the DB9's debut in 2003 has been but a slight permutation on its flawlessly proportioned contours should be proof enough that this is a watershed car for the ages.
In the time of Fitzgerald and Gatsby, this was the preeminent status symbol on the road. When people speak of the Roaring Twenties, this was the roar.
12. Toyota 2000GT
When Japan began to enter the worldwide motor industry, they began by building tiny, reliable commuter cars, overwhelming the competition with mass manufacturing and sheer volume. This was none of those things. This was Japan's first true supercar, an E-Type-inspired beaut that now commands more at auction than the old Jag itself. The prodigal son, returned.
11. 1971 Triumph TR6
To be honest, many British roadsters are a bit too small and…er, girlish for American sensibilities. Which is what made the TR6, with its squared-off dimensions, such an successful export. If you see a handsome vintage roadster on the streets of New York or L.A., chances are it's this or a Fiat. And that's it.
10. 1967 Ford GT40
You don't need the legendary origin story of the GT40—how Henry Ford JII, incensed over a failed takeover bid for Ferrari, ordered his engineers to whip the Italians at Le Mans, which they proceded to do four times in a row—to recognize its greatness. Hell, you hardly even need to see it movie. C'mon. Just look at it.
9. 1971 Lamborghini Countach
This was the car that every kid of the era had plasted on their bedroom wall. But ten-year-olds don't buy Italian supercars. You could hardly steer, park, or see out of it, but damned if it didn't look amazing to passersby. All the reason the man-child in all of us needs, really.
8. 1952 Series I Land Rover
This is style as utility, egality, and indeed fraternity, as all the myriad people and cultures and occupations across the world that ran their Land Rovers into the ground—and watched them keep going—were made alike by the functional four-by-four. Farmers drove one. Explorers drove one. And Queen Elizabeth drove one, too.
7. 1967 Alfa Romeo Spider Duetto
Dustin Hoffman's iconic ride from The Graduate is also one of the most gorgeous of Italy's many scintillating roadsters, inspiring dreams of Riviera drives and endless sunlit beachside roads with a single glance. Here's to you.
6. 1968 Ford Mustang GT
The father of all ponies, and the most iconic car in American history. We obsess over every new Mustang, and whether it'll upset the sanctity of a marque that sells in the tens of thousands every year. Now that'sa powerful brand.
5. Citroën DS
When the DS debuted in 1955, the world's motoring press thought it looked it looked like a spaceship, a glimpse of the future stolen straight from the pages of a science fiction serial. Sixty years on, it still does.
4. 1962 Ferrari 250 GT Spyder California SWB
In the entire illustrious history of Ferrari, this is perhaps its most glamorous car. Ferris Bueller stole one on his day off. One owned by the French actor Alain Delon just sold at auction for $15.9 million. Your eyes should be enough to explain why.
3. Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing
In many ways, this was the first modern supercar. Modern supercars, meanwhile, are still trying to replicate the oohs and ahhs the 300's fanciful gullwing doors incited in the world when it debuted in 1954. You can only have your mind blown the first time around, and this was the car that did it.
2. Talbot-Lago T150-C SS
Much of the '30s' flowing, curvaceous, still-futuristic design was inspired by this now little-known French firm, which went kaput '50s. And it doesn't get any better than this design, which packs so much a far-reaching scope of imagination and ambition into a single car that we'd struggle to match it even today.
1. 1969 Jaguar E-Type
Enzo Ferrari himself once called a car the most beautiful ever made. And it wasn't any of his gorgeous creations, it was this. The only question left, then, is if we'll ever see something of its equal again.
