Chances are that you already know what a Hennessey Venom GT is but if you don’t, here’s a rough sketch of what the $1-million dollar super car is all about. It starts life as a Lotus and is then modified in the suspension department, carbon fiber body panels are added and the whole works is repowered with 1,200hp twin turbo LS engine. As you’d expect, the performance numbers of the car are completely nuts and on the level with the mighty Veyron, but since John Hennessey is a racer and a guy who clearly knows how to make headlined, he wanted to nab the title of the world’s fastest production car for his Venom GT. He needed lots of room to do it and the perfect location turned out to be a runway formerly used to land space shuttles at the JFK Space Center in Florida. Measuring out to more than three miles in length, this runway had enough room to lay the throttle flat in high gear for as long as the boys needed to in an effort to lay waste to the Veyron’s top speed of 254mph. The Venom GT blasted to a terminal velocity of 270.49 mph. Holy bleep.
The video is cool, albeit a bit on the dramatic side using JFKs famous inauguration speech in the background to get the hairs on your neck to stand up. Granted, it worked on us but that speech about sending a man to the moon by the end of decade is a little heavy when talking about how fast toys for the ultra-wealthy can go. Watching the speedometer that is on screen bend up past 200-MPH like it is 60 is something but even more interesting is seeing how the acceleration slows the faster the car goes. That thing was really working to clip 270 and there wasn’t much room left before that happened. Truly amazing stuff.
Hennessey has sold 11 of the Venom GT cars with a plant to build a total of 30. Maybe this will help move a couple more. After all, what billionaire wants to be embarrassed by having the guy in the other lane pull away from him at 250mph. That would be a sad story to tell at the illuminati meetings.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO RIDE IN THE HENNESSEY VENOM GT AS IT RUNS UP TO 270MPH!
The Guy i worked for up until a few weeks ago has one of the 11. Apparently it, like his Mclaren, is broken all the time.
CHEVY POWERED
If it was Mopar powered it would have got up to 200 mph or better.
Great achievement. Bull Shit! Going to the Moon was a great achievement. Rich boys playing with their toys, who cares.
So it goes 270 mph. Then it sits in the shop for six weeks and maybe gets driven twice before it’s back in the shop for another six weeks. Us poor folks have sense enough to get rid of a car liked that.
Exactly ! You’d be better off with the Toyota powered Lotus Elise this POS is based on . At least that you could drive daily [ assuming you fit ] .. it wouldn’t break constantly … and .. you’d actually be able to use most of its capabilities on public roads ….. for … used .. around $20k or less .. depending on your bargaining and deal hunting capabilities
Unofficially …. again Unofficially .. which in essence means there’s no 3rd party verification …. which means we need to take Hennessy’s word for it … which in light of their past record …. would be highly unadvisable 😉
Digital Noise summing things up quite nicely !
Oh … and btw … Mr Garret …. Lotus engineering and chassis … its NOT Chevy powered … thats an AFTERMARKET LS style block underneath all that aftermarket Puff n’ Stuff … Nary a CHEVY part to be seen … excepting of course in GM Fan boys dreams .. and maybe in the tow truck.. assuming its a GMC/Chevy …. sent along to retrieve the pos after it breaks .. like everything Hennessy makes ..
Wow a lot of negativity, think of the other vehicles that come close to this speed or exceed it, how much work do they need after a pass. Can’t beleive how quick everyone is to jump on the negative band wagon. Clearly a very fast car, and true it is very expensive toy and well out of most of our reach.
It’s not just this pos. I seems like all them high priced pos stay in the shop more than they do on the road. You’d think that any car that ya pay more than $100,000 for would run better than that.
Can I borrow it for the weekend?
I have a hard time calling this a “production car” when in reality they basically just chopped and heavily modified an existing vehicle. Just because they are going to build 30 of these custom cars doesn’t mean it is a production vehicle. While they’re at it why don’t they buy 30 chevy cobalts and strap jet engines on them and set another unofficial record?
tyler garrett; do you work for Herb?
A mil is a lot of money. You could buy/build a lot of cool cars for that kind of jack, but this is not a car guys kind of car. This is a look at what I bought kind of car.
Please tell us you were just joking and you are really NOT an illuminati “believer”.
Claymore, yeah I was just kidding. I figured I’d get more people than just you riled up over that line. Uh oh…there’s a black helicopter outside. Gotta go!
Please tell us you were joking and you are really not an illuminati “believer”
The illuminati statement was funny.
I mean it’s not like any of it really matters. I was most impressed by the amount of time kit took to go from 100mph to 200mph. I’d like to see it race a Hyabusa.
Looks fun, and is definitely fast regardless of the “real” top speed, but to me, this car isn’t much more than a “gold digger” magnet.
As mentioned above – for that kind of money I could buy several amazing cars that I really love. Still, cool article and nice to know whats happening out there with the exotics. Thanks BL.
what kills me is, this is so “AMERICAN”, then they drive up in a “TOYOTA”, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Regardless of the provenance or practicality of this particular car, I would sacrifice a significant body part to, just once, drive something where you need to power-shift into third at 120 mph, and know that you’re less than half the way there. And paddle shifters are for wussies.