It's pretty much a given that if you want to win in Formula-1, you get Adrian Newey. Not Vettel, not Alonso, not Jesus, Newey! His cars won five championships for Williams, one for McLaren, and so far three for Red Bull.
The key to his success lies in his innovative solutions, like his pioneering exhausts between 2010-2011 on the RB6 and RB7. But while they have certainly worked, helping Li'l Sebastian to a pair of his trophies, they didn't perform too well as far as aesthetics go. You need the Italians for that.
The 1993 155 V6 TI is a serious contender in the most awesome exhaust ever game. What it had in the back wasn't just DTM-style steel, it was something that could melt your face off.
The car itself was a tubular space frame frapped in the Alfa Romeo 155's hard-edged body, powered by a 2.5-litre V6 with 420 horses in its debut year. By 1996, that went up to 490, while the engine revved to 12.000 rpm. They needed twin spark ignition, dry-sump lubrication and six pistons from Cosworth to achieve that, but together with the Q4 all-wheel drive and the sticky Michelins, the 155 TI was unbeatable even in foreign territory.
38 DTM wins in four seasons (plus 3 other non championship races) is a record still standing, and while I'm not sure how much of that was due to the exhausts cleaning up airflow off the back of the car, it probably scared the Scheiße out of the drivers of the Mercedes-AMGs and Opels behind it. You just don't mess with forza.
Photo credit: Richard Bets