The 10 Wildest Poster Cars Ever Hung on a Bedroom Wall

Before phone wallpapers, there was the bedroom wall. A good poster car didn't need to be practical, affordable or even pleasant to drive. It needed to look like it was doing 180 mph while standing still, and it needed to make your parents ask, "Is that even legal?"

We picked ten cars that earned their spot above a thousand twin beds. We stuck to verifiable numbers: production counts and specs, all checked in the pit lane at the bottom. And because this is Wrong Turn Garage, every hero gets its weird, impractical quirk.

1. Lamborghini Miura (1966–1973)

Why it got pinned up: The Miura was the first high-performance production road car with a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, a recipe nearly every supercar since has copied. Its prototype debuted at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show, finished just days before the show, and it was the star of the event. Marcello Gandini's styling made his reputation overnight.

The quirk: It was a rebellion. Lamborghini's engineers designed the Miura in their spare time, against the wishes of Ferruccio Lamborghini himself, who preferred powerful but sedate grand tourers. Its V12 was mounted sideways behind the seats. Exactly 275 P400s were built from 1966 to 1969, at a then-steep $20,000.

2. Lancia Stratos HF (1973–1975)

Why it got pinned up: It looked like a doorstop from the future and won like a bully. The Stratos took the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976. Bertone built it on spec to woo Lancia, using a friend's Fulvia running gear for the show car.

The quirk: The prototype's crescent-shaped wraparound windshield gave great forward visibility and almost no rear visibility. Lancia needed 500 cars for homologation, but production ended in 1975 with around 492 believed built. Close enough, apparently.

3. Lamborghini Countach (1974–1990)

Why it got pinned up: If you picture a bedroom-poster car, you're probably picturing this. Gandini's wedge, the scissor doors and, in later versions, that enormous optional wing. About 2,000 were built across all versions.

The quirk: You couldn't see out of the back. Owners famously reverse by opening the scissor door and sitting on the sill. We wrote a whole post about it: the Countach reverse. There's also a Countach Quirk Database entry with real auction prices, in case the poster is no longer enough.

4. Ferrari Testarossa (1984–1991)

Why it got pinned up: It's the 1980s with wheels. Miami Vice put it on TV from the 1986 season on, and Sega's 1986 game Out Run put it in arcades. Counting the later 512 TR and F512 M, almost 10,000 were built, making it one of the most mass-produced Ferraris of its time.

The quirk: The famous side strakes, nicknamed "cheese graters" or "egg slicers," weren't just for style. Several countries had rules against large openings on cars, so the big side intakes got slats. The strakes also made the car wider at the back than at the front. Don Johnson, who drove a white Testarossa on the show, was later given a silver 1989 one by Enzo Ferrari, who was a fan of Miami Vice.

5. Porsche 959 (1986–1993)

Why it got pinned up: It was the tech-nerd poster. All-wheel drive, twin turbos and a rally pedigree: Porsche's development cars ran the 1984 Paris–Dakar and finished first.

The quirk: It had hollow magnesium wheels that formed a sealed chamber with the tire, plus a built-in tire-pressure monitor, in the 1980s. Only 337 were built, including 37 prototypes and pre-production cars, and Porsche quietly assembled eight more from spare parts in 1992 and 1993. And no, the "Porsche refused to crash-test it for the US" story isn't right. US authorities don't crash-test cars themselves.

6. Ferrari F40 (1987–1992)

Why it got pinned up: It celebrated Ferrari's 40th birthday and was the last Ferrari personally approved by Enzo Ferrari. It was a race car with license plates and the most famous rear wing of the decade. Between 1,311 and 1,315 were built, 213 of them for the US.

The quirk: It had no door handles, no carpets, no door panels, no glove box and no sound system. You got air conditioning, but barely. The first 50 cars had sliding plastic Lexan windows, like a very fast tollbooth. The F40 that belonged to Nigel Mansell sold for a then-record £1 million in 1990.

7. Lamborghini Diablo (1990–2001)

Why it got pinned up: It had to replace the Countach on a million walls, and it did. It was named after a ferocious 19th-century fighting bull, and its 485 hp V12 was rated at a top speed of 202 mph (325 km/h).

The quirk: It was the wedge that got sanded down. After Chrysler bought Lamborghini in 1987, management didn't like Gandini's design, so its Detroit team smoothed out his sharp edges and corners. Gandini later used his original design on the Cizeta-Moroder V16T. Only 150 SE30 anniversary cars were built.

8. Vector W8 (1989–1993)

Why it got pinned up: It was America's fighter jet for the road, and it said so. Vector described its build process as "Aeromotive Engineering" and used aerospace materials throughout.

The quirk: It took a very long time. The W2 prototype appeared in 1976, but production didn't start until 1989. Just 17 customer cars and two pre-production cars were built before Vector went into receivership in 1993. In 1991, tennis star Andre Agassi returned his for a refund after the rear carpet burned from an overly hot exhaust. He had insisted on early delivery, on the condition that he wouldn't drive it until Vector finished the emissions work.

9. Jaguar XJ220 (1992–1994)

Why it got pinned up: It was long, low and, according to Jaguar's own test at Nardò with the catalytic converter removed, good for 217 mph (349 km/h).

The quirk: It was promised with a V12 and all-wheel drive, then arrived with a turbocharged V6 instead. About 281 buyers had paid £50,000 deposits. Then the early-1990s recession hit, and many couldn't or wouldn't complete the purchase. Just 275 were built, each at £470,000 in 1992, so the poster was the better deal.

10. McLaren F1 (1992–1998)

Why it got pinned up: On March 31, 1998, a prototype with a modified rev limiter set the Guinness record for the fastest production car at 240.1 mph (386.4 km/h). It was built from carbon fiber, titanium, Kevlar, magnesium and gold. Only 106 were made.

The quirk: The driver sits in the middle, with a passenger seat on either side, so it's a three-seat supercar. The engine bay is lined with gold foil as a heat reflector, because the carbon body needed serious insulation from the BMW V12. Our McLaren F1 Quirk Database entry logs real auction prices, if you'd like to feel poor in more detail.

The ones that didn't make the wall (this time)

Plenty of cars live on bedroom walls in our memories: the Bugatti EB110, the Ford GT40, the Shelby Cobra, the DeLorean and the 1990s import heroes. We'll get to them once we've checked the numbers. We've also kept away from claims about best-selling posters and specific poster printings, because we couldn't find solid documentation for them. We didn't reproduce any poster artwork here. The photo above is a freely licensed shot of a real F40.

Want more cars that look better than they behave? Browse the Spec Sheet Nonsense section or dig through the Quirk Database.