Hennessey Takes Aim at Bugatti’s Top Speed Record With New Venom F5

New Venom F5 (Credit: © Venom GT / HPE Design LLC.)

Though Hennessey never officially admitted it to the public, auto enthusiasts could feel the automaker’s pain when Guinness refused to recognize the Venom GT’s top-speed record for a production car due to a pair of technicalities. The one technicality within Hennessey’s control was the fact that Guinness requires a 30-car production run for consideration as a “production car,” and the Venom GT is limited to only 29 units. The other issue was that the Venom GT could only make a single run down the Kennedy Space Center runway, due to dangerous cross winds just before the required return trip. Though the second issue is still out of Hennessey’s control, the production number issue looks to be taken care of with the announcement of the new Venom F5, which will have a total production run of 30 units. The new Venom F5 will ride on the same Lotus chassis as the Venom GT, but it will feature its own bodywork that will drop its coefficient of drag to less than 0.40 — at least 0.04 lower than the Venom GT. The reduced drag alone should be enough to snag the record, but for good measure Hennessey will also push its 7.0-liter V-8 to new heights by way of larger turbochargers and intercoolers, and higher-capacity fuel injectors. While the final output numbers are still unknown, Hennessey was not shy in saying that it could exceed 1,400 brake horsepower — that’s 156 more than the Venom GT. A new addition to the Hennessey lineup will be the F5’s single-clutch, paddle-shift transmission  that will replace the Ricardo, six-speed manual transmission that comes standard in the Venom GT. For those who insist on rowing their own gears, Hennessey will offer the manual gearbox as an option. Hennessey will make good use of carbon fiber and aluminum to keep the Venom F5’s curb weight under the 2,866-pound mark. For reference, the Venom GT weighs just 2,743 pounds, so it is likely that the Venom F5 will shatter all of its predecessor’s acceleration records too. Pricing is still unconfirmed, but Hennessey has made it clear that the F5 will eclipse the Venom GT’s $1.2 million base price. Even with the increase, it’ll likely come in well below the base price of the Bugatti Veyron SS that currently owns the top-speed record.