6 years of amazing car photos from Autocar

At the end every year, we round up our favourite Autocar photos of the previous 12 months.

We've pulled together the best pictures from the last six years in a gallery which shows that it's not always twin-turbocharged, carbon fibre showstoppers that steal the eye.

The best photos have been ranked by our picture editor, starting at the 40th and working our way up to our most impressive shot. The photographers have something to say about the story behind each picture too.

These pictures can transport you from the tyre-stained tracks of British test roads, to wide open passes in Romania and to Turkey's bustling streetmarkets. Remember to go full screen to see the photos in all their glory:

40: AUDI R8 GT

2013: "A reminder that it can sometimes go wrong. The R8 in which I was a passenger rolled at the Nürburgring; thankfully, there were no serious injuries," said Stan Papior, our chief photographer.

39: ASTON MARTIN ONE-77

2012: "It isn’t often that you get to photograph such an exclusive car. And it’s even rarer, when you ask for some extremely lairy skids, that its keeper says, “Sure. How many?” Parts of Aston Martin's Gaydon test track are still reverberating to the sound of this £1.2 million car going sideways."

38: NISSAN QASHQAI

2014: This shot came during editor Mark Tisshaw's journey from Sunderland, Qashqai's hometown, to Istanbul and back, in total covering 5000 miles and 20 countries in just 13 days. The rainy streets of Istanbul provided a perfect set worthy of The Birds - luckily, no drivers or vehicles were harmed in the making of this picture.

37: MG LE50

2013: "The Oxfordshire location was perfect for shooting this glorious machine. There was a light breeze, which started to sway the grass, and this gave me the idea to use a long exposure to accentuate the movement of the branches. It created a soft contrast to the clean lines and shimmer of the car."

36: RADICAL RXC

2015: Luc Lacey caught the Radical RXC while hanging from the boot of a car in front of it. “A bit of portable studio lighting helped it pop out in the image."

35: FERRARI 812 SUPERFAST

2017: We got behind the wheel of the 812 Superfast, both at Ferrari's Fiorano test track and on the road in the hills around Maranello. 

34: JAGUAR F-TYPE R COUPÈ

2014: By buying the coupé version, you get an F-type Jaguar even better focused for drivers. During our road test, it ran a 0-60mph sprint in 5.1 seconds, and got to 161mph flat out. 

33: JAGUAR F-TYPE

2013: "Easily my favourite image from this year, of my favourite car of the year. A big, big drift from Steve Sutcliffe at the Navarro circuit in Spain. The tyres even survived long enough for more shooting the following day."

32: CATERHAM SEVEN 620R

2013: "Remember a Caterham Seven called the R600? We drove it in December 2012, in Lincolnshire on a damp track. Less than perfect conditions in which to try a supercharged lightweight racing car. But even then, Caterham talked about making a roadgoing variant of the 2.0-litre racer. This, the 620R, was it."

31: BMW 320D XDRIVE

2016: Stan’s 3 Series, which had a 10-second exposure to blur the running water into a mist. “Anything shorter is what the eye would see anyway,” he said.

30: FERRARI F12 BERLINETTA

2012: "Ferrari always seems to launch its cars from its factory. With some car makers, that would be a drag, but not with Ferrari. The countryside is terrific and the goodwill of the locals lets you get away with parking in someone’s driveway, as we did here."

29: FESTIVAL OF SPEED

2012: "I love the RAF's Red Arrows, but getting a picture just of planes into the magazine is a hard sell. So I positioned myself in the right spot and exercised a bit of patience." The Festival's featured marque in 2012 was Lotus, which celebrated 50 years of its iconic Elan that year, and the sculpture featured its most famous racing cars.

28: FORD GT

2012: "The first studio shoot of the year: a special and rare opportunity to photograph one of the most iconic GT cars of all time."

27: MCLAREN 720S WITH RAF TRISTAR

2017: Stan liked the colour match of the McLaren 720S next to the decommissioned RAF Lockeed TriStar in his more tranquil submission here. Bruntingthorpe Airfield, which was built in 1942, was the primary location for this road test.

26: MASERATI ALFIERI CONCEPT

2014: The car, photographed at the Geneva motor show, is a concept designed to sit beneath Granturismo sports car. It is named after Alfieri Maserati, one of the brothers who founded the company. 

25: CITROËN DS3 WRC

2014: France. "There is nothing – and when I say ‘nothing’, I mean not a single, solitary thing on earth – that can prepare you for what it feels like to be a passenger in a World Rally Car when it’s being driven flat out, by a proper WRC driver, through a proper WRC-style forest stage."

24: FERRARI 488 GTB

2016: Stan’s 488 GTB shot is created by another trick of the trade. “This is taken by a camera bolted onto the car with a tripod. It is moving at only 2mph, the speed created by an eight-second exposure.”

23: FERRARI GTC4 LUSSIO

2016: There was no deception with the GTC4 Lusso shot. Stan says: “The spectacular Dolomites landscape is no secret. This was one of the few gaps between coaches and cyclists.”

22: OPEL AMPERA

2012: "In July road tester Matt Saunders and I took up the challenge of competing in the Silvretta Rally, in Austria. This is one of the best roads that I have ever come across."

21: FERRARI 488 SPIDER

2015: “It doesn't get much better than seeing ‘New Ferrari, Italy’ in the photographers’ diary with your name on,” says Luc Lacey, this rig shot of a 488 Spider being the standout image from the trip.

20: MCLAREN P1

2013: "This was taken in our Teddington photographic studio. It was the last shot of the day and, as we started switching the lights off, the car was silhouetted perfectly."

19: BMW i8 & PORSCHE CAYMAN GTS & BMW M4 COUPÈ

2014: We found out by pitching BMW's i8 against the Porsche Cayman and BMW M4 whether 2014 was the year new technology usurped the enthusiast's preferred mechanical hardware in the fine-handling stakes.

18: EAGLE SPEEDSTER

2013: Andrew Frankel seemed to be enjoying himself at the Longcross test track in this gorgeous reinterpretation of the iconic E-type Jaguar.

17: BMW i8

2014: Proof that the electric revolution could be fun and fast, and a that the BMW i8 was a firm entry into the motoring - and photography - history books.

16: FERRARI F355 & HONDA NSX & PORSCHE CAYMAN GT4

2015: Stan Papior’s static shot of the Ferrari F355, Honda NSX and Porsche Cayman GT4 was taken at a location he’s used a million times before, but it shows what can be done when you use the shape of the cars to form the image.

15: ALFA ROMEO GIULA QUADRIFOGLIO & MERCEDES AMG C63

2016: Of his rather epic two-car drift shot, Luc says: “This is one of my favourite types of shot to do. There is loads of movement and action goingon. Getting the positioning perfect was tricky, so achieving the shot I wanted took a fair few goes.” And a large tyre bill…

14: MINI COUNTRYMAN COOPER S & NISSAN JUKE NISMO RS & AUDI Q SPORT

2017: Luc used the fog to his advantage with the Mini group shot. Light in a fairly dark place: that’s what the new Mini Countryman promises for keener drivers like us. 

13: TUSHEK RENOVATIO T500

2012: "A Tushek supercar, a Slovenian airfield and a proposition from a guy who owned a nearby hangar: “If you can take a photo for me, I can put a video camera on my helicopter.” Deal. Five minutes and a lot of downdraught later, we had this."

12: ROLLS-ROYCE PHANTOM COUPÈ

2016: "This was shot for a story to illustrate some of the significant locations where Charles Rolls made his mark in his short life [he died aged 32], from Wales, where he was born, to this location in the Peaks near one of his factories.”

11: MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER

2015: “This was shot on a stage of the Baja Portalegre 500, an event where Mitsubishi was shaking down its PHEV as part of its preparation for the Dakar,” says Stan Papior of this lead image.

10: MCLAREN MP4-12C

2012: "A McLaren MP4-12C road car and a background that is quite special. It’s not every day that you get to decide where you want the Spitfire to be."

9: BMW M4 & LEXUS RC F

2015: There’s something rather appealing about the way Lexus (or more specifically, its Toyota parent) appears to go about the business of building fast cars. From dawn til dusk, there's fun to be had with both cameras and cars.

8: ARIEL NOMAD

2015: This shot is one of Luc Lacey’s. “I spotted a pool of water next to the jumps and decided to shoot wide to keep it in the frame to capture the reflection. Lowering the shutter speed means it’s trickier to shoot, but it adds so much energy to the shot.”

7: VAUXHALL INSIGNIA

2017: Vauxhall Insignia on Norway’s Atlantic Ocean Road, shot by Luc Lacey in the one gap in the clouds after six days of rain.

6: CHANGAN IN CHONGQING

2017: Stan Papior used the rain and the mist in China to make a brown SUV seem attractive.

5: FORMULA OFF ROAD

2016: “The guy in the flying car is Snorri Por Árnason. He wins everything, but his day job is digging road tunnels in Norway,” says Stan on the star of his new favourite sport. “While their parents get into the serious business of racing, the kids play with what they can in an Icelandic quarry.” Health and safety? Bah.

4: FERRARI 458 SPECIALE

2013: A truly special car being driven in an appropriate manner by Steve Sutcliffe during its launch in Italy.

3: VAUHALL VXR8 GTS

2017: In third place is the limited-edition VXR8 GTS we were allowed to exclusively drive. “Not sure what to say about this,” said Stan of the Holden-derived Vauxhall VXR8, “except 576bhp creates a lot of smoke in the wrong hands.” One Mauro Calo, for the record. 

2: ROLLS-ROYCE WRAITH

2017: Reading this in Romania? Don’t tell the authorities Stan sneaked through a barrier on the Transfagarasan Pass to capture this Rolls Wraith shot in the fading light, which is our runner-up.

1: LAND ROVER DISCOVERY

2017: The best Autocar photo since 2012 was taken on the Grossglockner Pass, Austria. “My jaw hung open,” says Luc Lacey of the Austrian location of his no-trickery Disco shot here. “It is probably the biggest highlight of the year for me.”