And pack over 1,000kW. That’s quite a bite.
John Hennessy is not a man to be trifled with. With a Lotus Exige as a base, he created a 927kW monster, a number that swelled up to 1082kW by the time the final 12th Venom GT rolled out of their Texas facility. And while John has said before that they’ve “attained some pretty incredible achievements with the Venom GT,” the Venom F5 is expected to be “the best value supercar on the market” when it lands later this year.
The Venom F5 is named after the most powerful tornado in the world, classification F5, which hints at the performance on offer from Hennessey’s latest. Needless to say the American performance marque has the Bugatti Chiron in its sights, with its 1,100kW and 463km/h top-speed set to be either outdone by brute force or with finesse, as the Venom F5 is expected to be a whole lot lighter.
Rather than building off the bones of a Lotus, the Venom F5 will sit on a bespoke chassis by Hennessey themselves, featuring a carbon-fibre tub for extra rigidity and reduced weight, along with an enormous American V8 sitting behind the passenger cell, replete with two turbos to ensure it’s no slouch. Power will be put down to the rear wheels via either a single-clutch automatic gearbox or a six-speed manual, depending on how big your gentleman’s balloons are.
The power figure for the Venom F5 might be -just- 1,043kW (or 1,400hp thereabouts), but the the Hennessey is also expected to weigh some 500kg less than the Bugatti, resulting in a power-to-weight ratio that’s far more competitive than the big ‘ol Chiron, which is hardly a featherweight.
Hennessey’s F5 will maintain a low, aggressive stance that is said to have a truly efficient drag coefficient, but will also maintain a spoiler to improve high-speed stability that will be deployed at higher speeds. And while most would rubbish claims by a small manufacturer to hit almost 300mph (483km/h), the Venom GT managed to go down NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre runway at 435.31km/h, faster than the Veyron Super Sports’ best speed of 434.30km/h. Only reason why the Venom GT didn’t then get the crown of the fastest car in the world was because it did that run once, and not the two-way average that Guinness requires for a top-speed run.
The Venom F5 will be making its debut at the SEMA show in Las Vegas on November 1st, and we will bring you more details as we get them.
