Vehicles & driving
Mafia III ships over 75 period vehicles and you can steal any of them — but the clean way is Burke's Vehicle Delivery perk, which drops a car wherever you are. The fastest stable in the base game is the De'Leo 58 (top speed 119), with the Bulworth Harrow and Berkley Stallion close behind.
Mafia III ships more than 75 period vehicles — sedans, muscle, exotics, boats — and then hands you the keys to all of them the old-fashioned way: grand theft auto, 1968 edition. The clean way is Burke's Vehicle Delivery perk, which turns any street corner into a garage. Here is what drives best, and what upgrades actually change.
How the fleet works
Any unlocked car can be delivered to your location once you have Burke's Vehicle Delivery perk (his free service). The fleet grows as the story progresses and as you unlock more via favors — and when a perk unlocks a modification, it applies to every fleet car, performance-wise, at delivery. Cosmetic parts like superchargers and bodykits are a separate purchase at Big Rick's Custom Auto, where paint, decals, rims and exhausts live. Nothing about the cosmetics changes performance: the supercharger is ornamental until the favor or Arms Dealer upgrade lands.
Top speed leaderboard
| Vehicle | Class | Top speed | Speed | Handling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| De'Leo Traviata | Exotic | 130 | 79 | 76 |
| Griffin Marauder | Exotic | 127 | 77 | 84 |
| De'Leo Stiletto | Exotic | 127 | 77 | 67 |
| De'Leo 58 | Exotic | 119 | 72 | 70 |
| Samson Duke | Exotic | 117 | 70 | 62 |
| De'Leo Capulet | Exotic | 117 | 71 | 68 |
| Samson Opus | Exotic | 116 | 69 | 73 |
| Smith Moray | Sports | 114 | 68 | 61 |
The De'Leo family owns the top of the board, with the Traviata at 130 — but the numbers only tell half the story: durability 40 versus the Griffin Marauder's glass-cannon 10 decides which car survives a police chase, and handling 84 on the Marauder makes it the drift king of the exotics. For hauling through traffic while being shot at, the heavier sports frames (Smith Moray, Samson Storm) trade a few mph for real armor.
DLC additions worth knowing
The three story DLCs add hardware you cannot get in the base city, and one of them owns a trophy outright:
- Samson Harrier — one of the quickest cars in the game and the only one with a dedicated mileage trophy; Street Rocket wants 50 km driven in it.
- Lassiter Nightcrawler, Bulworth Harrow, Berkley Stallion, Smith Moray MX100 — Faster, Baby! sprint and muscle cars, built for Sinclair Parish's stunt roads.
- De'Leo Stiletto — earns its own Stones Unturned cameo and is one of the quickest cars in the game.
- The county's flatbed and the DLC exotics round out the delivery list once unlocked.
Driving systems the game hides
The October 2026 update added new FPS caps and a window-border toggle, but the driving itself has been quietly deep for years. Two modes exist — arcade and simulation — and the simulation setting genuinely punishes sloppy inputs, especially in the rain-slick French Quarter. Slow-motion driving (introduced back in an earlier title update) gives you eight seconds of dilated time with a six-second refill: it is a cornering cheat, a crash-recovery button and a ramming assist all at once.
New Bordeaux Racing missions unlock specific vehicle modifications alongside cash, and the vehicle-trap routes in Tickfaw Harbor pair with a dedicated achievement (ten successful traps). Tailing and chase mechanics follow their own rules — stay close but not too close, because a full tailing meter means a gunfight instead of an address.
What to actually drive, and when
For the campaign's early districts, take anything with four doors and durability above 60 — a heavy Bulworth frame shrugs off the patrol cars that spawn during racket raids. Once Burke's fleet fills out, the routine is: Marauder for chases, De'Leo 58 for long runs, the Harrier for anything with a timer. And when the police zone goes red, remember the ramp rule — a 50-metre jump that lands on all four wheels is worth an achievement, so pick a hill on purpose at least once.
