So when someone says you can get a 400-horsepower car for under $10,000—one that’ll blow the doors off plenty of European exotics—you’d probably raise an eyebrow or two. Understandably so.

And by that very practical metric, the fastest car you can buy today for just $20,,000 isn’t a German luxury bruiser or some sketchy JDM import. Nope.

Automotive engineers must performance, comfort, and compliance with safety and emissions standards; and this street-legal car is faster than all the rest.

German carmaker BMW revealed that back in April the new M2 CS managed to set the record for fastest compact car on the Nordschleife at 7:25.5 minutes.

Looking for a car that you can drive to the track and then set lap records in? Here are the world's fastest street legal cars, ranked by top speed.

It's now official that the Chevy Corvette ZR1X supercar is the fastest American production car around the Nürburgring, with a stunning lap time of 6:49.275.