For the longest time, there were only three certainties in life: death, taxes, and a pretty decent new one Need For Speed game every winter that'd arrive just in time to top the gaming charts for Christmas. Multiple generations of us grew up with the series, delighting in its powerslides and cop chases, not to mention all the spoilers we could whack on the back of a custom-painted, flip-flop orange and lime green Civic.

It's slowed down in its latter years, has old grandfather Need For Speed. The most recent release was Unbound in 2022, and before that it was Heat in 2018, with a remaster of Hot Pursuit to tide us over in the interim. But it still feels at the heart of the genre, and that's in no small part due to the sheer number of iconic cars it's given us over the years.

They might not be the subtlest, the fastest, or the most aerodynamically sound. But gazing upon these vehicles is like staring into the eyes of an old friend and seeing them smile back at you. They're our old buddies, which we either won countless races in, won countless races to eventually acquire, or coveted all game long while our big rival in the narrative drove it instead of us.

Pink slips at the ready, then. Protective goggles on, because there's going to be some vinyl jobs that could detach an unguarded retina, and brace yourself for an overwhelming wave of nostalgia and an urge to wake up as a teenager in the mid-Noughties. These are the icons of NFS past and present.