Hennessey used the 2017 SEMA show to unveil its most ambitious project to date: the Venom F5, a successor to the Venom GT with over 1,600 horsepower on tap. The bigger news? Hennessey believes it will clock a 301 mph top speed.
That’s a heck of a claim and no production car has come close. Bugatti limits the Chiron to 261 mph because it claims no tire can handle the forces at such high speeds. But, the company thinks the Venom F5 houses the right stuff, and it starts with a new chassis and carbon-fiber body.
With the lightweight body, chassis and new active aerodynamic elements, Hennessey says the Venom F5 yields a coefficient of drag of just 0.33. A slippery thing the Venom F5 is. What about power? There’s plenty coming from a new, in-house, twin-turbo 7.4L V8 engine (we suspect it to be LS-based) paired to a seven-speed single-clutch automatic transmission. Final weight tips the scales at 2,950 pounds. That’s a couple hundred pounds lighter than the lightest C7 Corvette.
Hennessey claims the Venom F5 will go from 0-186 mph in under 10 seconds, and 0-249-0 mph will happen in under 30 seconds. Those are world-beating suggested performance figures, though Hennessey still needs to validate them. The 301 mph top speed achievement will be incredibly significant if the company figures out a tire capable of withstanding the forces.
According to the Texas-based tuning company, the Hennessey Venom F5 will carry a price of $1.6 million USD and only 24 will be built.
The Venom F5 will be on display for the remainder of the 2017 SEMA show but stay tuned for additional information in the near future.
Comments
300 mph…487 or so km/h…..just…. wow.
In 20 year’s they’ll have one of these doing Mach 1
Why wait 20 years when the Thrust SSC already did it 20 years ago.
The Thrust is jet powered and British. We need a U.S. designed and built supersonic car!
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/auto-racing-portrait-of-craig-breedlove-with-turbojet-powered-spirit-picture-id102122340
It is said that he is working on a new one with a target of 1000 mph
Why so slow? Mach ten, “7” thousand three hundred ten MPH!
https://youtu.be/6K_rzuSuqIg?t=189
THAT should be the mid engine C8. Yes it’s an expensive car but it could have been the halo hypercar for GM with lesser equipped/expensive models, much like what McLaren does. Bet it utilizes an LS/LT powerplant much like the previous Venom.
Hard to believe a smaller company like Hennessey, compared to GM, can create such a beauty. Kudos…
Hard to believe? That’s a painted foam model and a computer generated car on the road. At least the C8 will exist.
Yeah, right, just like the last Venom didn’t exist or go well over 200 mph? You’ll believe it when it’s reported on right? Nah….Hennessey doesn’t even exist. Please spare me the BS….
You didn’t even watch the video. They’re shown cutting out and painting a foam model of the car. The video was CG as the textures and reflections were as console-quality.
You stop your bull taking every word in a press release as verbatim. I’ll believe them when their 300 mph car can be independently confirmed to actually go that fast.
Never, NEVER take anyone’s word for anything without evidence.
Of course I watched the video. EVERY manufacturer starts their production based models that way, including GM. That type of video is all over the internet for many manufacturers and merely shows it’s DEVELOPMENT. What do you expect, a live production feed as it’s being built??? If Hennessey say’s that they will build it, they will. They already built the first Venom using a modified Lotus/LS platform that is in the Guinness Book of records and they will pursue the second Venom. Have you even looked at their website? Give it a try and enlighten yourself there and quit wasting my time.
There wasn’t even an engine in the bay. The interior wasn’t finished, and all signs pointed to incomplete. I was at SEMA this week where it was revealed. At least when Chevy reveals something, it’s usually not a 1:1 model of what they hope to build. Can’t claim such incredible figures before the Venom F5 can even move under its own power. Counting the chickens before they hatch, as they say.
I’m going to bookmark this page and when Hennessey puts it on the road before the C8 Mid-engined Zora, I’ll come back and reply. If it’s vice versa, please post a remark and I’ll be happy to eat crow. See ya’ then Fanboys. 😉
“I’m going to bookmark this page and when Hennessey puts it on the road before the C8 Mid-engined Zora, I’ll come back and reply.”
You won’t come back. The C8 already has powered test-mules on the road whereas the F5 hasn’t left the computer. Even if the F5 came out before the C8, it would be so rushed and poorly assembled that it would only further the stereotype of the unreliable American car.
Sure, Hennessey has an existing platform who’s mother was the Lotus Elise, but that platform itself is older than the Chrysler 300, so that should tell you who has the upper hand in your petty F5 vs. C8 war.
The Hennessey Venom F5 will be another footnote like the SSC Ultimate Aero. Over promising. Under delivering. Fading from public memory.
I’ll take the Tuatara!
1,600 horsepower Hennessey Venom F5: a car of singular purpose
The hypercar is designed purely for straight-line speed with a target of being the fastest road legal car in the world.
BY
ANTUAN GOODWIN
MARCH 8, 2018 2:41 PM PST
Hennessey
Hennessey Special Vehicles’ new Venom F5 hypercar has one simple goal: to be the fastest road car on earth.
After debuting at the SEMA Show late last year, the F5 has arrived at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show this week to put its rivals on notice. The F5 is the sequel to the 270 mph Hennessey Venom GT, which formerly held the “fastest car” before being edged out by the Koenigsegg Agera RS.
The new F5 features new lightweight carbon fiber construction that brings the curb weight below 3,000 pounds. Meanwhile, low drag bodywork with a 0.33 coefficient help the hypercar slip through the air at its lofty top-speed target.
Hennessey Venom F5
“It’s no question of if we will break 300 mph but a question of when,” states founder and CEO John Hennessey.
Hennessey
Powering this storm on wheels is a new 7.4-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engine making over 1,600 horsepower and about 1,300 pound-feet of torque. A seven-speed, single-clutch automatic transmission with paddle shifters sends that power to the rear wheels, propelling the F5 to a 301 mph Vmax benchmark.
Singular in purpose, the Venom F5 is built around straight line speed and will compete with the Bugatti Chiron Sport for the title of “fastest road legal car” when deliveries begin in 2019. Interested? Well, you’d best act fast and have very deep pockets. Only 24 examples of the Venom F5 will be built and delivered, and 10 of them have already been sold at $1.6 million a pop.
Has any Hennessey car ever challenged the green hell?
GET IN THE RING, and build your own engine already John!
Bring on the Alpha C8!
If you can’t make it turn, you better make it burn!
Built off the hopes and dreams of their customers (who thought their money would be used to build their car but it turns out it was used for this and they will never get the product they paid for).
Based on past Hennessey wrong doings and lies, I’d put very little faith in anything they say. Or are they on the up and up (again)?
Named after an F5 tornado classification on the “Fujita Scale” that was decommissioned in 2007 for the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF-Scale).
oops. guess he didn’t like the greater than 200 mph rating compared to the earlier 261 – 318 mph rating.
You can almost hear the gears in some people’s heads as they imagine of tuning the upcoming C8 Corvette into a 300 mph beast.
“Venom F5 yields a coefficient of drag of just 0.33. A slippery thing”?
Hate to brake it to you, but 0.33 is piss poor aero.
2016 Porsche 911 Carrera 0.29 CdA, Chevy Volt2 0.28 CdA, Mazda 3 0.26-CdA, 2013 Tesla Model-S grill 0.24 CdA, Tesla Model-X SUV 0.24 CdA, 2016 Tesla Model-S no grill 0.23 CdA, Tesla Model-3 19″ wheels 0.23 CdA, Tesla Model-3 18″ aero wheels 0.21 CdA, 1998 GM EV1 w mirrors 0.195 CdA. (no mirrors cars are not counted as they are illegal to drive, but for fun: VW XL1 0.189 w cameras, Tesla Model-3 no mirrors 0.187, EV1 no mirrors 0.18)
“Venom F5 yields a coefficient of drag of just 0.33. A slippery thing”?
Hate to brake it to you, but 0.33 is piss poor aero.
1990 Acura/Honda NSX 0.32CdA, 2016 Porsche 911 Carrera 0.29 CdA, Chevy Volt2 0.28 CdA, Mazda 3 0.26-CdA, 2013 Tesla Model-S grill 0.24 CdA, Tesla Model-X SUV 0.24 CdA, 2016 Tesla Model-S no grill 0.23 CdA, Tesla Model-3 19″ wheels 0.23 CdA, Tesla Model-3 18″ aero wheels 0.21 CdA, 1998 GM EV1 w mirrors 0.195 CdA. (no mirrors cars are not counted as they are illegal to drive, but for fun: VW XL1 0.189 w cameras, Tesla Model-3 no mirrors 0.187, EV1 no mirrors 0.18)
all I can say is its beautiful car, you hit the mark HENNESSEY
I will celebrate this car once it turns a wheel and once it does break 300 MPH. Till then I will happily observe.
Many tend to underestimate what it takes to get from 250 to 300 MPH. It is not just a few more horsepower it is like X4 more power to get to 300 than 200.
As the speed increases the need for more power multiplies.
I got to know John Lingenfelter before he passed. He explained it to me. He is the one who build the engine and drove the C4 Sledgehammer Callaway to 254 MPH years ago. It was street legal and fully functional including AC and Stereo.
It took 900 HP to get there. John said they could do 300 MPH but it would take much more power.
Odds are Hennesey may be able to do this but it is not easy. If it were Bugatti would have done it already.
John at the time of his death was driving a 230+ MPH Corvette. I asked him if he was going for more and he said no. He said that if something happened at the TRC track in Ohio there would be little left at these speeds. You can see what happens to a NASCAR stock car when it goes wrong well these are street cars and no where near as protected.
Might note the new thing is going 0-250-0 is the new bench mark now anyways. That may be a target GM may seek with a future C8 high end model.
Good sports go but Great sports cars go, stop and turn.
This car may accomplish this but will become a foot note in history much like the Sledgehammer.
Well said. I couldn’t remember what the “multiples” were, but knew they were ‘many times’ factorials.
But all the mongos who don’t understand physics, especially the effects of aerodynamics, air resistance, lift etc. will know better! LOL. (Just youtube old Le Mans footage of those cars doing 300-350kph [186~217 in the old imperial mph] down the Mulsanne Straight, before the days of aero development – scary!),
Oh and there’s also the small matter of NO rubber for production vehicles that will turn (*safely and consistently*) at 300mph. That is why the Bugatti Chiron is speed-limited to 261mph. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the test driver to work out those actual limits…Code Brown… just saying.
At 300 MPH, it covers a mile in twelve seconds, so where will they test it? The longest straight runway is the old Space Shuttle landing strip in Florida. I don’t know of any other strip that can handle a 300 MPH vehicle, either from space or on land, unless they dare to test in Utah where the Thrust did its runs.
where will they test it?
https://jalopnik.com/a-nevada-highway-is-shutting-down-for-koenigseggs-attem-1820144581
Unofficial attempt at fastest highway speed on record—291.
Route 160 between Las Vegas and Pahrump
https://www.google.com/maps/place/US-160/@36.0898049,-115.8868372,11.16z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x87080bf9ad4451c3:0xa0c3e264de22bf69!8m2!3d37.2717117!4d-100.8689322
There’s always Ehra-Lessien in Germany ;-P
278 mph, not much time left for John and the Venom F5 team if they want to be first to eclipse 300 mph.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/jalopnik.com/this-is-what-koenigseggs-record-278-mph-nevada-speed-ru-1820157256/amp
Koenigsegg Agera RS has 5 speed records as a result of their last officialised runs. Better shake a leg Hennessey.
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/supercars/koenigsegg-agera-rs-has-claimed-five-speed-records
I know the One:1 is trimmed out for track use, but a small reconfiguration of the onboard aero package and Bob’s your uncle.