Back in February this year, Texas-based speed shop Hennessey Performance Engineering (HPE) aimed its mind-numbingly fast Venom GT down the Space Shuttle’s 3.2-mile long landing runway Kennedy Space Center and cut all 1244 ponies loose. Brian Miller of Miller Motorsports Park was behind the wheel and on the day drove the sports car to a world-beating top speed of 270.49mph (435.31km/h). Seemingly though, that’s not enough…
And that’s where the Venom GT’s successor comes in. HPE’s named it the Venom F5.
The ‘F5′ designation comes from the Fujita Scale and the categorising of tornados – 5 being the most destructive with estimated wind speeds of between 261mph and 318mph (419km/h to 512km/h). It’s a fitting title for a machine that John Hennessey is targeting 290mph (466km/h) with.
That’s thanks to a slipperier shape that’s dropped the F5’s drag coefficient to below 0.40 (was 0.44 in the Venom GT) and a next-generation twin turbo V8 engine that is destined to generate 1,400hp. When you factor in the weight – under 1,300kg (2,866lb) thanks to extensive use of carbon fiber and aluminium – you start to understand just how absurdly awesome this Lotus Exige-based road legal car will be.
If you want one of the 30 being produced you’ll need very deep pockets though. The Venom GT currently sells for $1.2million, but the F5 – due to be officially unveiled next year – will command ‘more’.
Brad Lord
brad@speedhunters.com
Images: HPE
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I would of said the F5 stands for 'refresh' (ala the keyboard shortcut) as I'm sure when these things go on sale they will sell out pretty quickly - even with the arm and a leg price.
0-60?
TarmacTerrorist lol
TarmacTerrorist rofl. you won the internet man.
Brad- the driver who laid down the record for Hennessey is Brian SMITH. He happens to be a good, personal friend of mine and deserves all the credit for being a 270mph Badass!!
Back to drooling....
That rear reminds me of the McLaren P1... I like.
200-300?
jdmRob Why are you worry about that? You still have another 230mph left after that... (Probably under 2,7 seconds most likely)
RacingPast just curious
jdmRob RacingPast 0-100, 0-124 and 0-187 should be interesting though.
it looks like mix of mclaren p1 and corvette c7
TarmacTerrorist I don't think they would sell out as the current venom is currently at 19 built and sold with around ten still to be sold. I feel they should build them for both the U.S. and world markets, then they would sell out in a heart beat
Wow these are some awefully bad renders, how could they take this seriously?
>2014
>giving millions of dollars to a renowned thief and liar
Now that's aerodynamic!
Never forget, Hennessey has ripped off countless people over the years. Scummy business with a scummy owner.
Obvious styling cues ripped out of both the McLaren P1 and Ferrari LaFerrari
Hilarious.
Frozzy Yea those jerks. they made a super car that looks similar to other super cars. how laughable that they made something that looks like what they intended it to be.
That's a Zenovo
Ksyruz TarmacTerrorist nah, in the supercar world Hennessey is one of many "also-ran" companys, probably even after Noble and the like.
They built cars who just do one thing really good, going in a straight line, despite the known Lotus suspension scavenge.
The Koeniggsegg One:1 is a better bet in my opinion for that record (or speeds even close to it). Turn up the boost a little, sacrifice longevity and they might surpass this car even in a straight line. While being better engineered as a whole.
SeanStott Steven Tyler agrees to disagree.
@Diego SeanStott John Hennessey being a scammer and thief is a well-documented fact. He stole thousands of dollars worth of parts off of customers' cars in the mid-00's, and then promptly sold them off. In some cases he sold off entire cars, or used customers' engines as test beds for prototype performance parts without their permission. Other customers got their cars back with numerous performance parts installed that they never ordered, but were billed for. Hennessey has also never taken responsibility for any of these things, instead, he's gone onto various forums and thrown expletive-filled tissy fits. He is a thief and a scammer. I wouldn't let him work on my lawnmower.
nickmmele Frozzy The front end is an almost exact copy of the Lotus Elan concept car.
jdmRob 0-60 is just slipping the clutch into 1st gear for this thing!
nickmmele Frozzy
Because Koenigsegg, Pagani, McLaren, Ferrari etc all look alike right?
Too many illiterate individuals in here. It looks like this, like that, resembles this or that...
It is clearly mentioned that this is going to be a ''Lotus Exige-based road legal car'' like its predecessor which was an atrocious, overpriced tuner car based on (and registered as) a Lotus Elise.
I bet Christian is laughing at this 'hillbilly' attempt to be a leader in the hypercar industry.
More importantly, where is the editorial and is Linhbergh back?
Personally, I get no excitement from these ridiculous HP cars. They exist in a different dimension to me. Good luck to them, I guess?
Made of unobtainium and when are you going to go that fast......Really??
If those cars are so good, why doesn't anybody race them officially ?
I was being flippant, sorry I should of made my sarcasm clearer. I agree about the koen. Too, it's a beast of the car.
Are these just renders? All 3 photos are different. Top has no fuel cap behind right side window but photo 2 does and last photo has different shape/colour? Photo 2 also has some funky bodywork overlapping the rear wheel? Compared to tuckin on the other photos? Cool car tho.
To achieve V-Max surely they would need a longer
track than 3.2 miles? They need to take the car over to Ehra-Lessien for a
proper run!
It will corner also?
Is this a joke? "Lotus Exige-based road legal car" hahaha the Venom GT is a joke just like this will be. It's not a production car so it really isn't the fastest production car now is it? So all these '270 mph' fanboys can sit down.
@Dr Walker yes the only thing that isn't rendered is the tires but everything else is just done in photoshop. (poorly if i might add)
i think first generation was based on lotus-exige. now its a new car made in house by john Hennessey. and is a hard core muscle.
UGLY COPY OF La Ferrari!!!
A quick research about John Hennessey scam would deter most buyer. I don't have the money to buy cars like this. So it just make for a fun reading.
mertle_s14 That will never happen. Volkswagen would just say no. Especially since this is more or less the rival to the Veyron in terms of speed.
Frozzy Also blatant copies of air scoops from the F40, front end and side air intakes are straight from the Zenvo ST1. For fvcks sake why can't yanks be original
AirLift_Brian They weren't allowed to do a run in the other direction, so the "record" doesn't actually exist, just wishful dreaming on Hennesseys part. Kudos to your mate though.
BOOOM Frozzy I'm not American, but those NACA ducts actually comes from the US. Ferrari actually copied it from an American fighter jet...
Brian Smith was the driver, he used to be my old driver coach