The scariest cars we've ever driven

Halloween is the day dedicated to everything spooky, scary and ghoulish. To mark the occasion, members of the Top Gear team have delved into the darkest parts of their brains to recall petrifying driving experiences they'd rather forget. Scroll the gallery to read them all.

Paul Horrell, Consultant Editor

Chrysler invited nine of us to drive the ME-Four-Twelve - an 850bhp, quad-turbo supercar concept (pictured). We drew lots to see who was first. I, er, ‘won'. It was at Laguna Seca, a legendarily scary track around which I had never driven. By going first I got to enjoy the early morning mist and dampness. I did bring it home though, and as I arrived back I seriously (if briefly) contemplated stuffing it into the pit-entrance wall so that I could get a world exclusive.

I also remember us crash-testing a G-Wiz - we bought the car and paid for the test. It made the national news. The crash test technician looked at the post-impact dummies and said: "I see these tests every day but I've never felt sick before."

Driving the Kia Picanto through a military checkpoint at the Korean DMZ while a soldier pointed his rifle at the driver's door and told me photography was banned. Snapper Justin Leighton was secreted in the boot of a blacked-out SUV in front, taking a picture...

Other scary moments include driving a Boss Mustang down the sharp side of the Stelvio Pass in fog and thunder. The thunder was knocking rocks off the cliff, so I had to stop and remove them from the road as the Stang's splitter was too low to clear them. That, and leaving the pits in a Lotus F1 car for the first time, worrying I'd balls up the hand clutch and stuff it into the pit wall.

Driving the Pagani Zonda F round Silverstone was a challenge. Spinning it right in front of Horacio Pagani didn't help, though it was a harmless, second gear slow-speed mishap, thank Christ. And staying at Silverstone, being driven round by Eddie Irvine, while he kept talking on his mobile the entire time, sticks in the mind.

Driving the Ferrari the Ferrari is clearly the stuff that dreams are made of, but anything so exclusive comes tinged with a not inconsiderable amount of fear. The potential for getting things wrong round Fiorano is amplified at LaFerrari speeds, and had been ably demonstrated by someone in the morning. So, as I was waved out of the pits onto Ferrari's hallowed test track I repeated the mantra of "don't bin it". Not least because my next appointment was with Di Montezemolo and I was keen to avoid the answer to his inevitable "how did you find LaFerrari?" being, “excellent Sir, but they’re just picking what’s left of it out of the gravel at turn one.”

Getting wheelspin in third and then fourth in the Hennessey Venom GT in the middle of the desert focused the mind. It was my fault. I pointed out to John Hennessey that I thought it was down on power due to the altitude... bad idea!

But I'll never forget watching the first small licks of flame spark to life deep towards the bulkhead of the priceless Mazda Furai as we tracked it down the Bentwaters runway. Eight minutes later and thankfully with the Stig safely removed, the Furai lay in a pile of priceless carbonfibre ash. An event that remained secret for over five years...

The Deltawang was probably my favourite scary car. For a start, I was mightily impressed that it actually moved under its own steam and actually looked like the Deltawing. If you squinted. And were drunk.

But there were issues. For start, the engine was a bit anaemic, and the gearbox was looser than a bagful of coins. Selecting a gear was a matter of hit and hope. And grind, and try again. But the first few laps were slow anyway, so that didn't matter.

Stupidly, I then got cocky, and headed into the Hammerhead too fast - massive understeer, followed by whip-crack oversteer, with the front end only loosely associated with the steering wheel, like they were slightly unfriendly pen-pals. The problem was that it never did the same thing twice: one minute it wanted to kill me by ploughing straight on, the next moment - same corner, same speed, same inputs, everything - it was trying to head backwards. I've never seen so many dynamic flaws executed so fiercely in such a limited amount of space. Or indeed in only one car.

And then, on the Follow Through, at 80mph (the speedo was reading 80mph, it felt like 110, I think it was about 60), the quick-release steering wheel clicked and fell off. Weirdly, I was still attempting to steer with it, completely unconnected, as I braked down just in time to re-attach it and stop myself heading into the field.

Weirdly, it was sort of good fun. If you can drive that thing fast, you can drive anything.

I've driven plenty of stuff with big power or inappropriately treaded track tyres, but the most vividly scary memory I can recall from the driver's seat involves a 64bhp Chevrolet Matiz and the Col de Torini. Shooting a celebration of hire cars, I headed up the Col just as the heavens opened.

I tried desperately to keep up with Messrs Marriage and co in their array of slightly better resolved hatches - Citroen C1, Fiat 500, Ford Ka - barrelling into every corner, eyes wide with fear, trying desperately to maintain what little momentum I'd built up while battling terminal understeer as its castors-for-wheels proved fairly unhelpful at respecting my requests to change direction in the sopping wet. Bad cars are few and far between nowadays, but that one was bona fide tosh.

There's only been one car that truly intimidates me: the Hennessey Venom GT.

Fitted with a 7.0-litre twin-turbo GM-sourced V8, power is largely unknown as you add hundreds to the thousand or so horsepower in a similar vein as to changing the temperature of your morning shower. But with no electronic gubbins, rear wheel drive and the ability to cover 120 metres every second, it's makes all the blood in my head migrate south to my boots.

So when I popped to Texas to have a go in some of Hennessey's other cars, I noticed America's 1244bhp hypercar sitting in the corner of the workshop. Fresh from its Bugatti Veyron SS beating 270.49mph record run, John asked if I wanted to drive it.

Trying, and failing, to remain calm thanks to a white face and sweaty palms, I agreed. But then, oddly, John's first reaction was to head to the window and check the weather. "It's overcast," he said. "Now, traction has to be right in this car. So you can drive it if you want, but I'd really recommend you do it when it's sunny." Suitably terrified of binning quite literally the fastest car in the world and having to blame it on ‘light cloudiness', I decide to leave it for another day. A sunny one.

Most cars feel like they're trying to look after you. Not the Peel P50 on the Isle of Man's TT course. I may have been laughing and joking afterwards, but at the time I've never had to concentrate harder or felt that a car was doing more to turn itself turtle. Those castor-sized wheels, the 1:1 steering ratio, the vulnerability. Genuinely frightening. And the engine wasn't even running.

Also, every single mile of the Baja 1000. Many of them with photographer Justin Leighton in tears in the passenger seat - a broken man in every conceivable way. There was the feeling that we were so far out of our depths that it wasn't even funny, then we'd get rammed by a Beetle buggy, crash into a river, hit some wildlife, drive into a booby trap... and I haven't even mentioned the unmentionable 'Whoops'. The most mentally and physically exhausted I've ever been.

And then there's the Nissan Zeod. How can something that looks so sleek and elegant ride with all the panache of a trolley jack? Also, after dire warnings from the team, I was quite scared about electricity.