Having never quite settled the matter of whether or not its Venom GT supercar beat out the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport as the fastest car in the world, Hennessey Special Vehicles hopes to claim the title anew with the new Venom F5.
Remember that the GT ran just over 270 mph on a NASA runway in 2014, edging out the Bugatti by a few miles per hour. Except that, unlike Bugatti’s recognized production-car speed record, Hennessey’s wasn’t verified by Guinness World Records because it only completed one pass, not two in opposite directions.
Maybe that won’t matter whenever Hennessey actually builds the F5 it introduced at the 2017 SEMA show this week, since the company is shooting for a much higher 300 mph. Provided it makes two passes and can outgun the now retired Venom GT’s top speed and the Veyron-replacing Chiron‘s 261-mph Vmax, the speed junkies at Hennessey might have a claim.
That said, the car doesn’t quite exist yet. Promotional videos appear to depict a computer-rendered car, and the F5 on display at SEMA was most definitely a styling buck. Under development since 2014 and originally promised to reach customers last year, the F5 eventually is supposed to have a twin-turbocharged V-8 engine producing 1600 horsepower, a seven-speed single-clutch automated manual transmission, and a carbon-fiber body shell. Performance claims include a sub-10-second run to 186 mph, while 249 mph could arrive in less than 30 seconds.
What about that pesky production-car top-speed record, though? Hennessey’s previous attempt not only lacked a second pass in the opposite direction for Guinness’s requisite averaged velocity figure, the Venom GT also wasn’t built in sufficient volume to count as a production car. Guinness says that number is just 30 cars, but Hennessey cranked out only 29.
This time, the company says it’s only building 24 Venom F5s, which would seem to preclude a record claim no matter how fast the car goes. If such details don’t matter, or you dig the Venom’s American hypercar shape, the privilege of joining the club of 24 will cost you $1.6 million.
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