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Hennessey Venom F5 Revolution Coupe coming to a track near you

Hennessey isn’t finished milking the Venom. The Texas performance shop revealed the Venom F5 Coupe in December 2020, the Venom F5 Roadster in August of last year, and is kicking off 2023 with the Venom F5 Revolution Coupe. In Hennessey’s hierarchy of speeds, the original car was engineered to reach the highest production-car top velocity; the Roadster that followed was engineered to provide the most visceral experience; this F5 Revolution was made to master the track. Worked up from the initial F5 Coupe, the F5 Revolution gets the same basic goodies — carbon tub, 6.6-liter twin-turbocharged V8 with 1,817 horsepower and 1,193 pound-feet of torque, seven-speed automated single-clutch sequential transmission, carbon ceramic brakes. Hennessey says “the engineering team focused on reducing mass” so that the newest trim is the lightest Venom model and “tips the scales below 3,000 pounds.” However, the the F5 Coupe is already less than 3,000 pounds and company didn’t specify a new weight.

There are plenty of verifiable changes, though. A reshaped carbon fiber front splitter pairs with dive planes at the leading corners. A roof scoop shoves air into the mid-engine bay for enhanced cooling. The stand-up, adjustable carbon rear wing with endplates is claimed to shove more than 800 pounds of downforce on the rear axle at 186 miles per hour and more than 1,400 pounds of downforce at 249 mph. For those keeping track of the high-speed testing, Hennessey said the standard coupe hit 271.6 mph in March at the Johnny Bohmer Proving Ground. This one will be a touch less alacritous because of the appendages, but few owners will reach even 249 mph unless they end up at a Spa-Francorchamps track day.  

Internal changes include a new transmission calibration, a more aggressive suspension setup, adjustable dampers, and wider forged alloy wheels making a larger contact patch. An available telemetry package displays and records circuit data including lap times, splits, and G-force.

The cost: $2.7 million, which is $600,000 more than the coupe, $300,000 less than the Roadster. We’re told it’s limited to 24 units, but our Spidey sense tells us that Hennessey calling this the Venom F5 Revolution Coupe points to a Venom F5 Revolution Roadster heading this way at around 250 mph. Anyone in southern Florida next week can see this family member make its debut at the Miami Motorcar Cavalcade Concours d’Elegance on January 15, 2023.

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Hennessey Venom F5’s carbon chassis weighs as much as Steph Curry

CEO and founder of Hennessey Performance Engineering (HPE) John Hennessey has pegged the famous Quail Motorsports Gathering during the 2020 Monterey Car Week for the debut of the production version of the Venom F5 supercar. Only 24 examples will be built for the world, and each one will cost at least $1.8 million. HPE has already shown the the conceptual shape of the car, as well as its (claimed) 1,800-plus-horsepower engine, and now for the first time, the public gets a glimpse at the car’s skeleton, a carbon-fiber chassis that weighs less than 200 pounds.

As of January 20, 2020, Hennessey Performance Engineering (HPE) has three customer-bound Venom F5 supercars in production, with testing scheduled to begin in the second quarter of the year. Under the skin of each will be this structure, an all-new clean-sheet chassis made up entirely of carbon fiber weave impregnated with polymers. The entire thing only weighs 189.6 lbs, or about the listed weight for NBA superstar Steph Curry, and Hennessey claims its torsional rigidity is approximately 38,353 lb-ft of torque per degree. It’ll need every bit of strength for what HPE has in mind for the supercar.

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The initial goal with the Venom F5 was to break 300 mph, but during the time the car has been in development, Bugatti went ahead and broke that mark by hitting 304 mph in a Chiron. Not one to be outdone, Mr. Hennessey now says he wants his creation to reach at least 310.7 mph, which equals a nice, round 500 kph. 

In order to do this, the car needed something bigger and badder than the 1,600-plus-horsepower engine shown back in 2017. Powering the current Venom F5 is a bespoke Hennessey Specialty Vehicles twin-turbocharged 6.6-liter V8 with custom lightweight internals and 3D-printed titanium compressor housings. Hennessey says it makes 1,817 horsepower and 1,193 lb-ft of torque, and it has been dubbed Fury. 

When the car is complete, 12 will be sold to the American market, and the other 12 will go to international clients. Lucky for interested parties, Hennessey says there are still open slots for U.S. customers. Once the initial run of F5 coupes is distributed, Hennessey will likely shift its focus to altering the chassis you see here to accommodate the demands of a Venom F5 Roadster.

Oh, one last thing: Turn the volume down before watching that video above or your ears might start bleeding.

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Hennessey Venom F5 engine officially makes over 1,800 horsepower

Details on the Hennessey Venom F5 hypercar have been trickling out of the Texas-based company, and they seem to change every time we hear about it. But hopefully things are becoming more concrete, because Hennessey revealed it has finally dyno-tested the engine slated for the car and have final numbers.

It makes 1,817 horsepower at a screaming 8,000 rpm and 1,193 pound-feet of torque at 5,500 rpm. It also apparently will make at least 1,000 pound-feet of torque from 2,000 to 8,000 rpm. Redline is 8,200 rpm. It’s worth noting that these numbers put the Venom over 200 horsepower ahead of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+, Koenigsegg Jesko, and Hennessey’s original power goal. The engine revs 1,000 rpm higher than the original prototype, too. This is all good news considering Hennessey wants to break the 300 mph barrier like Bugatti has and Koenigsegg aims to do.

Just as the Venom F5’s power isn’t what was previously announced, the engine itself has changed since we last saw it. When it was shown at The Quail last year, it was all-aluminum and had a displacement of 7.6 liters. Displacement has dropped down to 6.6 liters, and the engine block changed from aluminum to forged steel. But as with the prototype, it’s twin-turbocharged, uses pushrods instead of overhead cams, and the heads, intake manifold and pistons are all still aluminum. The engine has a name, now, too: Fury.

Hennessey also announced it will begin testing the whole car later this year. The company will build 24 examples total, each with a price of about $1.6 million. Provided that all goes well with the regular Venom F5, the company has plans for a roadster variant to come afterward.

John Hennessey aiming to take Venom F5 to 311 mph

John Hennessey has said that “We believe our car is capable of going well beyond 300 mph” when speaking of his Venom F5, and we thought 301 miles per hour was his target. Turns out it’s not – what he means is 310.6856 mph — or a nice, round 500 kilometers per hour. Eleven extra ticks might not seem like much when you’re already doing 300, but every additional mile per hour is another battle.

Hennessey’s already said the Venom F5 has a drag coefficient of 0.33. Using that figure and the calculator at Wallace Racing to work out horsepower needed for a given speed, a 3,000-pound car with a frontal area of 20 square feet would need 1,216.51 hp just to move air out of the way. That doesn’t include overcoming rolling resistance or other factors. To go 311 mph, the same car would need 1,355.29 hp. That’s 139 additional ponies, more power than found in many small cars on sale today. Hennessey’s numbers guys figure the Venom F5 will need 1,520 hp to do 300 mph, so they’re looking at another couple hundred horses to hit 311.

Not that it should be a problem. During Pebble Beach we were told that 7.6-liter twin-turbo, pushrod V8 is currently rated at 1,600 hp at 7,200 rpm, and the company plans to hold that redline. Previously, though, the tuner said the motor’s been turned up beyond 2,000 hp.

The Texas firm will begin testing prototypes sometime in 2019, with high-speed validation runs expected to commence toward the end of that year. The first effort will focus on breaking 300 mph, then, “After we break 300 we’ll see how much faster we can go.” Assuming that happens, the 311-mph run might require changes beyond a horsepower hike, such as aero modifications, but eventual customer cars will be outfitted to the same spec as the 300-mph car.

On top of that, Hennessey has plans for an internal-combustion-engined car that could hold its own in a drag race with the coming, second-gen Tesla Roadster. He told Motor Authority that “[If] Dodge can make a 4,000-pound Demon go 0-60 in 2.3 seconds,” he’s confident about getting “a tire on the F5 … that will be running in the high 1-second range, 1.8, 1.9 second range….”

And remember, the SSC Tuatara is out there, too, with its 1,750-hp engine. After Jerrod Shelby said his coupe is the only one with a real shot at 300 mph, we figure he’ll be out to break any mark Hennessey sets. The next two years should prove interesting in the top speed wars.

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Koenigsegg sees new Tesla Roadster as the ‘gauntlet’ thrown down

Christian von Koenigsegg, the man behind the company that holds the current record for world’s fastest car, does not like to be outdone. So he did not particularly enjoy hearing the numbers regarding the forthcoming next-generation Tesla Roadster and its vaunted 1.9-second 0-60 mph time.

“We kind of had our future mapped out, and then we heard about the new Tesla Roadster and its insane acceleration numbers, and we thought ‘Damn, that’s put the gauntlet down,'” the Koenigsegg founder and CEO told Top Gear.

As he told the site, he enlisted his engineers to start running numbers, and within a couple of days, they’d figured out a solution. “The simplest way of putting it is like this: It’s combining direct drive with the hybridization we have in a different format with free-valve engine technology, in a peculiar layout,” von Koenigsegg said. He said the powertrain could take a car from 0-250 mph in 14 seconds “or something like this,” and said he wants to make a combustion engine with a higher power density than an electric powertrain “for as long as possible.”

His talk about hybrids brings to mind the Koenigsegg Regera plug-in hybrid, which weighs just 3,505 pounds and puts out more than 1,500 horsepower. It does 0-62 mph in 2.8 seconds — impressive, but a full 0.9 seconds less than the Roadster’s purported time. And not surprising for a company that is all about maximizing ponies, Koenigsegg likes to geek out over the details of things like the design of the 1,160-hp Agera RS engine. Could he be talking about the same vehicle as the successor to the Agera RS, rumored to be called Ragnarok?

Tesla, meanwhile, unveiled said Roadster at Grand Basel in Switzerland — or rather, it showed off what appeared to be a white, empty design shell that had been shown last year at Tesla’s shareholder meeting.

And don’t forget that the mad scientists over at Hennessey are tinkering with the 7.6-liter V8 for the Venom F5, the key to its quest to hit 300 mph. So buckle your seat belts, boys and girls: Things are about to get very fast.

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Hennessey F5 reveals 1,600-hp billet-aluminum twin-turbo V8

CARMEL, Calif. — We’ve heard a lot about the powertrain that will propel the Hennessey F5 supercar to its proposed 301-mph top speed. But each time we’ve heard about it, the details have been a little fuzzy. The only truly concrete details have been that it will have at least 1,600 horsepower, it will be unique, and it will be a V8. Well the details are more finalized now, since Hennessey showed the engine at The Quail Motorsports Gathering.

The engine is all-aluminum with cast aluminum heads, and a machined billet aluminum engine block. The result is a powerplant with a rather unique finish, and it features Hennessey and F5 logos machine-etched into the block. The block is reinforced with steel cylinder sleeves. The pistons are forged, too. It’s also an old-school pushrod design, rather than using double overhead cams. According to John Hennessey, the reason is mainly for packaging, as the pushrod design results in a small, light engine. Augmenting the relatively small external size is a dry-sump oil system.

Despite its physical size, the engine has a massive displacement of 7.6 liters, which falls between the two numbers that had been previously reported for the engine. Feeding the engine all the air it can consume are two large turbochargers at the ends of tubular stainless steel headers that provide 22 to 24 psi maximum. Current output is at least 1,600 horsepower at 7,200 rpm and 1,300 pound-feet of torque at 4,400 rpm. John Hennessey says the engine could probably rev higher, but they’ll likely set the rev limiter at the 7,200 rpm mark.

Even with the engine finally revealed, not all of the specs are final. Hennessey told us that the output could be increased if more is needed to hit the 301-mph top speed. He did say that this is the baseline, though. He also reiterated that, while it won’t be made to be a lightning-fast track car, the company is still aiming for a sub-7-minute lap time at the Nürburgring. Hennessey will also build 24 examples, and 15 people have ordered it. The company has previously said the car will cost $1.6 million.

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Hennessey planning Venom F5 speed record assault

New details are emerging from Geneva about Hennessey‘s ambitions to claim the record for world’s fastest car, including the V8 powertrain that will drive the upcoming Hennessey Venom F5 toward its promised 301 mph top speed benchmark.

Founder and CEO John Hennessey told “Top Gear” the hypercar will have “a completely bespoke, 8.0-liter twin-turbo V8” that will hit no less than 1,600 bhp, which equates to around 1,622 horsepower. But he said he’s contemplating slapping on a couple more turbos and expects to decide before the Pebble Beach Concours in August.

Hennessy first revealed the supercar at the SEMA show last November. There, John Hennessey told Autoblog that he wasn’t necessarily aiming to set a record at the Nürburgring, just to do a lap in under seven minutes, a feat notched by cars like the Lamborghini Huracán Performante and the Porsche 918 Spyder. He also talked about how the car’s design was meant to look like a peregrine falcon. But at the time, the V8 engine specs were still being kept under wraps.

Hennessy unofficially had the title of world’s fastest car in 2014 after the 1,451-hp Venom GT hit 270.49 mph. That’s of course since been eclipsed by rival Koenigsegg, which raced an Agera RS helmed by Swedish race driver Niklas Lilja to an official top speed of 277.87 mph on a closed highway in Nevada in November. When it comes time, Hennessey told Top Gear he may make the attempt in Texas, or return to the same road in Nevada traveled by the Agera RS.

But he insists the Venom F5 will be more than just a straight-line track monster. “Could we build a high-downforce version with the massive splitter and massive wing and lots of downforce? Maybe we’ll do that later,” he said. “For now, [the F5 is] a proper road car that can be driven at crazy speeds in a straight line but still go around turns and stop.”

The company plans to make just 24 examples of the Venom F5 and sell them at $1.6 million apiece.

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SSC — remember them? — releases new teaser image for Tuatara supercar

Remember the SSC Tuatara? The supercar from the company formerly known as Shelby SuperCars that aimed to reclaim the record of fastest production car for its parent company, which once held that title with the Ultimate Aero?

Well, it’s back from the dead, maybe. At least, the company released a new teaser image for the Tuatara along with the tagline, “The evolution is coming.” The car dates back to 2011 as a concept and has never been unveiled in the traditional sense. And there’s no other new information to go from.

SSC announced the Tuatara, named for a lizard native to New Zealand that possesses the fastest-evolving DNA on the planet, back in 2011. And we heard rumblings over the years, most recently in 2013, that the car was on track to be built at a plant in southeastern Washington and offered for sale for a cool $1.3 million. That plant reportedly has been delayed as the company founder, Jerod Shelby, sought financing. The Tri-City Herald newspaper in late 2016 reported that SSC broke ground on the facility in 2013, but that little else had happened at the site.

The Tuatara’s most recently known specs were 1,350 horsepower and 1,280 pound-feet of torque from its 6.8-liter V8. The company is perhaps best known for the Ultimate Aero, which held the record for fastest production car, having been clocked at 257 mph in 2007, before ceding the mark to Bugatti and the Veyron SS in 2010. Of course, last fall a Koenigsegg Agera RS hit 277.9 mph in Nevada in a still-unverified new record, and Hennessey is gunning for speed-demon Nirvana with its Venom F5, which claims a top speed of 301 mph. So the competition has only intensified in the years since SSC has gone quiet.

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Hennessey provides a peek at the Venom F5 hypercar’s interior

Hennessey Performance recently unveiled its upcoming Venom F5 hypercar, along with some impressive projected performance figures, including a claimed 301 mph top speed. But the unveiling only showed the exterior of the car. That will change on November 21 when the car’s insides are revealed, and the company also provided a peek at the steering wheel ahead of the debut.

What we can see is that the car has copious amounts of carbon fiber. The wheel appears to be made of carbon fiber, the dashboard is made of it, and it appears the LCD instrument panel is surrounded by it. Anything that isn’t made of exposed carbon fiber seems to be wrapped in leather or Alcantara.

The steering wheel is just covered in buttons, too, and even some toggle switches. Some of them are for usual car fare, such as the horn and turn signals, but there are some more exotic ones. There’s a button labeled “boost”, for example. It will be interesting to see if that’s for an overboost function for more pressure from the turbo for a short time. The gear selector even migrates to the steering wheel, appearing as a twist knob on the lower left of the wheel center.

We’re looking forward to seeing the full interior reveal on the 21st, but we’ll be looking forward even more to the final powertrain reveal. Though the company has announced the car will hit a top speed of 301 mph and have an original V8 design, John Hennessey has said that final powertrain details aren’t nailed down yet, and has left the door open for the engine having more than two turbos. The final car should start reaching customers around 2019 or 2020.

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301 mph, 1,600 hp: Hennessey Venom F5 details emerge

Hennessy Special Vehicles is unveiling its much-awaited Venom F5 hypercar today at the SEMA Show (along with a cool new video that fans of early Aerosmith will dig, below), and the beast dubbed “America’s Hypercar” is making big promises. Hennessey teased the stunner a couple weeks ago, saying its intent was to take on the Bugatti Chiron for the title of world’s fastest car.

Now we have more details to go on for the F5. Its twin-turbo, 7.4-liter aluminum V8 produces an astounding 1,600 horsepower and 1,300 pound-feet of torque, giving it a top speed of 301 miles per hour. Acceleration will be quick: from 0 to 186 mph in less than 10 seconds and 0 to 249 and back to rest in less than 30 seconds, though independent performance tests of course will have to bear out those claims. The engine is mated to a seven-speed single-clutch paddle-shift transmission that drives the rear wheels. Unlike the car it replaces, the Venom GT, which was built atop a Lotus Elise platform, the Venom F5 gets an all-new, lightweight chassis and carbon-fiber body, giving it a curb weight of just 2,950 pounds.

“We’ve designed F5 to be timeless so that in 25 years it will still have a level of performance and design that will be unmatched,” CEO John Hennessey said in a statement. “The F5 is an all new car, designed and built from the ground up, from the engine to the chassis. We expect the Venom F5, named for the most powerful tornado speed winds on the Fujita scale, to be the first road car capable of achieving more than 300 mph and have worked closely with Pennzoil to get us across the finish line.”

The Venom GT, which had a 1,451-horsepower twin-turbo 7.0-liter V8, was unofficially dubbed the world’s fastest car in 2014, having hit 270.49 mph, though Bugatti plans to challenge that next year in the Chiron.

Base price will be a cool $1.6 million, with just 24 units to be built. And according to “Top Gear,” John Hennessey himself will hand-pick its recipients, with first deliveries starting in 2019.

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Hennessey’s Venom F5 hypercar teased for Nov. 1 reveal at SEMA

Hennessey has announced plans to reveal the production version of its long-awaited Venom F5 supercar Nov. 1 at the SEMA show in Las Vegas, and released new images and a video of the hypercar expected to boast a top speed of nearly 300 mph. The F5 is the performance shop’s bid to be the fastest road car in the world, taking direct aim at the Bugatti Chiron.

To be built and sold under new company Hennessey Special Vehicles, the F5 promises cutting-edge technology in design, engine development and chassis, with an all-new, original chassis and body. It will build the car at its headquarters in Sealy, Texas, near Houston.

Hennessey first revealed renderings for the F5 three years ago. It released updated teaser images in June and announced plans to put the car into production, with founder and CEO John Hennessey describing the project as “sophisticated aggression on wheels.”

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The F5 name derives from the rating assigned to tornadoes boasting wind speeds of between 261 and 318 miles per hour, the top rating on the Fujita scale. It replaces the Venom GT, a supercar powered by a 1,451-horsepower, twin-turbo 7.0-liter V8 engine with a top speed of 270.4 mph and a 0-60 time of 2.4 seconds. Just 12 models were ever produced, with the final version selling for a cool $1.2 million.

The F5, Hennessey says, will surpass the GT’s horsepower, have a top speed exceeding 290 mph, plus improved aerodynamics and ultra-light weight to boost performance.

The new images show a wing-shaped rear spoiler and a tri-exhaust tailpipe configuration that evokes a honeycomb or Olympic rings. The company plans to livestream the unveiling, which takes place at 11 a.m. PST Nov. 1, on its Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channels.

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