The best new cars of 2023

May 29, 2023

By Jason Barlow

These are fast-moving, transformative times for the car industry, but do not fear, GQ is here to serve up the best new cars on a regular basis. Whether you’re navigating your way through the highly charged new electric landscape, falling for a fashionable classic, or want to get a load of the latest Aston Martin, Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche, we have access all areas – to the cars that count, the people who create them, and the culture that sustains them. This is the GQ edit of the best new cars of 2023.

Coachbuilding was one of Rolls-Royce’s USPs back in the day, and it’s become a lucrative 21st century side hustle for this formidable luxury brand. The Droptail picks up where 2021’s Boat Tail left off (as commissioned by Jay-Z and Beyoncé) and asks, ‘can a car be art?’ Underpinned by a new chassis that mixes steel, aluminium and carbon fibre, the roadster body has a chopped quasi-hot rod look with a heavily raked windscreen and slender side windows. And check out the tapered rear deck, which took two years and 20 iterations to perfect in terms of its aero/aesthetic balance. A black sycamore panel encircles the interior, consisting of 1,603 individual pieces of wood, 53 painted red to represent scattered rose petals. A lone craftsman apparently spent nine months creating it, working for no more than an hour per day in silence. There’s also a bespoke Audemars Piguet chronograph set into the dashboard. Four Droptails will be made, costing a rumoured £25m each. Art, yes, But showbiz, too.

As the automotive world continues its giant pivot towards electrification, there’s still scope for something bad-ass. Ford CEO Jim Farley is an accomplished racer in his spare time, and the GTD is clearly a personal passion project. If the Mustang has a rep for being the blue collar sports car, this one shreds that in a whirl of exotic motorsport tech. A Mustang GT3 will be contesting the Le Mans next year and other endurance races, but this carbon fibre-bodied ‘street’ version is actually more powerful than its racing sibling. Its supercharged 5.2-litre V8 makes 800bhp-plus, and uses a carbon fibre driveshaft and a rear-mounted eight-speed dual clutch transmission to harness it. There’s also trick hydraulic suspension and a gigantic active rear wing for big aero numbers. The paddle-shifters for the gearbox are 3D-printed titanium that recycle bits of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. Ford is tilting at Porsche’s unsurpassable 911 GT3 RS, so don’t blink at the GTD’s $300k price tag. It’s good for it.

It has no roof or windscreen, which makes the 1,900bhp, fully electric B95 a head-spinning – and neck-pummelling – proposition. But look closely and you’ll spot a pair of aero screens which, says Automobili Pininfarina, ensures that fast-moving air is sent over and above the occupants. The screens are fully adjustable, made of polycarbonate, and rise into position on exposed aluminium supports. Their design was inspired by contemporary superbikes and vintage fighter planes. Based on the Battista hypercar, the B95 is a deliberately more extreme machine than that, and also provides a template for potential clients to go nuts on the spec. The car you see here even gets away with Houndstooth trim on the headrests. Only 10 B95s will be made, and you’ll need £3.75m to get through the door.

By Ciaran Thapar

By Adam Cheung

By Lucy Ford

Officially, this is a concept, an early teaser for Lamborghini’s first pure electric car. That’s not due until 2028, at which point the Lanzador will become the company’s fourth model line. A high-riding, ‘ultra-GT’, expect the finished thing to differ only in the detail execution, its shape and stance designed for maximum entertainment and engagement as much as anything else. Lamborghini sits at the peak of the mighty VW group portfolio, so the new electric soft- and hardware will also appear on Audis and Bentleys. But the Lanzador will be specifically Lambo in character, a dual e-motor set-up promising 1,350bhp, and new-gen battery tech delivering up to 400 miles of range. Lamborghini’s combustion engines are loud and in-yer-face. Its electric cars will have to re-fashion the company’s innate theatricality, and here’s our first pointer as to how that’s going to play out.

Monterey Car Week and the Pebble Beach concours have a definite retro vibe. And while Lotus has just launched its highly impressive Eletre EV, the Type 66 leans hard into the company’s highly vocal motor racing past. Back in 1969, legendary Lotus boss Colin Chapman tasked one of his top engineers to design a car for the thrillingly lawless American Can-Am race series. But Lotus was riding high in F1 at the time, and the project was deemed an unnecessary distraction. Cryogenically frozen, the Type 66 is thus technically new, with power steering, a sequential gearbox and ABS to go with its defiantly old-school 830bhp pushrod V8, and the white, gold and red livery consistent with Lotus’s Gold Leaf tobacco sponsorship. Only 10 are planned, with prices starting at £1m. Bragging rights at the track day are guaranteed.

By Ciaran Thapar

By Adam Cheung

By Lucy Ford

There is no mainstream Danish car industry, and the Danes are not renowned for their love of extrovert hypercars. All of which makes Zenvo a fascinating outlier, doggedly pursuing its high performance ambitions for more than a decade. Now here comes the new Aurora, available in road-oriented Tur or track-focused Agil form. There’s an all-new chassis and 6.6-litre quad-turbo V12 engine, developed by specialist Mahle, and good for up to 1,850bhp with the aid of three e-motors. “The Aurora project is best described as an equilibrium of extremes,” Zenvo boss Jens Sverdup says with some Scandinavian understatement. Christian Brandt has done an astute job on the car’s design, citing the Danish love of simplicity as an inspiration. ‘We wanted to showcase as much of the chassis, engine and suspension as we could,’ he says.

GQ likes Maserati, and we like the direction its CEO Davide Grasso, former chief marketing officer of Nike, is taking it. The David Beckham-endorsed MC20 supercar is expensive but deeply impressive, and now it’s spawned a track-only iteration that makes it look like a Fiat 500. The 3.0-litre ‘Nettuno’ V6 gains new turbos, a new intake and exhaust to produce 730bhp. The body has been completely revised with dramatic new aero features, including a huge manually adjustable rear wing, and most of it’s made of carbon fibre. Limited to 62 units, the MCXtrema costs £936k, and even at that hefty figure it’s sold out. Silly name, though.

Monterey attracts the heaviest financial hitters, and this Ferrari was the star lot during one of the year’s most frenetic auction weeks. Sixties Ferrari endurance racing cars are highly prized among the world’s wealthiest collectors, and this 412P was one of just two made in 1967. Delivered new to Maranello Concessionaires, one of Ferrari’s most trusted importers and run by the charismatic Colonel Ronnie Hoare, the 412 P was raced at Le Mans, Spa and the Nürburgring, with some of the all-time great drivers at the wheel. Following a nine-year restoration, and given its top five status in the Ferrari pantheon, you could argue that $30.25m is… no, that’s a shed-load of money whatever way you slice it. NB: this is the fourth most valuable Ferrari sold at auction.