hennessey venom gt

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.

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 planning Venom F5 speed record assault

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