A decade on from building the world’s fastest car, the Texan tuners plan to celebrate in style with an updated Hennessey Venom F5.
Back in 2014, I remember there being a sudden stir online. News emerged from the Deep South that America had built a hypercar, a hypercar which looked suspiciously like an elongated Lotus Exige. But that wasn’t what all the fuss was about. No, instead, the noise was surrounding what this Frankenstein’s monster had achieved. The Hennessey Venom GT, as it was called, had clocked a top speed of 270.49mph, and in doing so, had blown the might of Bugatti out of the water. The world’s fastest car was no longer an Alsatian behemoth funded by Volkswagen, it was a quirky American project from a company that nobody had ever heard of. Well, I think it’s fair to say that the Venom GT put the Hennessey car tuning company firmly on the map.
The original Venom GT of 2014
Anyway, it’s scary to think about, but 2014 was a decade ago now, so to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of their impressive feat, Hennessey has some suitably big plans for the celebration. See, while the 2014 Venom GT remains the fastest manual transmission car in the world, the outright record now sits with the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ which clocked an insane 304mph top speed. So, what better way to honor the old Venom than to develop the new Venom F5 to a point where it can join Bugatti as part of the 300-club?
Hennessey Venom F5
Incase you’re unaware, it’s worth pointing out that the Hennessey Venom has come a long way from its days of cosplaying as a Lotus. The current Venom F5 model has its own definitive style, and is an even more impressive beast than its predecessor.
The Venom F5 boasts a V8 engine that produces an unhinged 1,817hp, which in its launch spec would allow the car to crack 270mph. It’s fairly light as well, tipping the scales at 2,998lbs (1,360kg), so it’s not just a straight-line weapon, it can corner too. In fact, a special ‘Revolution’ track version arrived a little while ago, and you can even have your Venom F5 as a convertible if you want to ensure you have a really bad hair day every time you punch it. However, the company openly admits that the Venom F5 needs some extra fettling if it’s really going to worry Bugatti.
How does Hennessey plan to crack 300mph?
So far, exact details of what mechanical changes will be made to the car are under wraps, but it’s clear to see that Hennessey has worked hard at putting the pieces together. They’ve recently hired Brian Jones, who was chief engineer for Mercedes’ AMG One project, as well as David Donohue – a veteran racing driver. Donohue has more than three decades of racing experience under his belt, having achieved success at some of the biggest motorsport events in the world like the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Speaking about the project, company founder John Hennessey said, “I love that Koenigsegg is gearing up for big speed, I hope that Bugatti joins the party too – it’s rivalries like this that fuel our passion, and drive us to go faster, innovate more, and push harder! With 22 [Venom F5] customer cars delivered and a newly expanded engineering team, we’re well placed to refocus our attention on enabling the Venom F5 to deliver on its potential.
“Our hypercar has a simulated theoretical top speed of 328mph, but we’re certainly not chasing that number. Breaking 300mph in two directions is this year’s goal, while hitting 500km/h (310.8mph) in one direction would be the ultimate way of celebrating the internal combustion engine!”
We’ll be sure to keep you up to date with this story, so stay tuned over the coming months!
