Coming November 1st
Calling all petrol heads, mark your calendars for November 1st. Our good friend John Hennessey will unveil his Venom F5 – the Bugatti Chiron-baiting twin-turbo V8 hypercar that he hopes will be the fastest car in the world.
But to whet your appetite, here are some of the details. Like the F5’s predecessor – the Venom GT – the Venom F5 has one overarching goal: going fast. Really fast! How fast? Well, given it’s named after the fastest and most powerful wind on earth, the F5 tornado – a gust capable of anything between 261 mph and 318 mph – it looks like the new F5 is set to have some big numbers on its speedo.
“I think something in the 290mph range will be possible,” John Hennessey commented in an exclusive interview. Normally a claim so big from a manufacturer so small should be taken with a pretty hefty helping of scepticism. But don’t forget Hennessey has form.
Could this be the first 300mph production car? We wrote an article back in 2015 predicting Bugatti, Shelby Supercars, or Hennessey would be the first to hit the 300mph mark, and this could confirm our prediction!
Unlike the Venom GT that was panned by naysayers as a mutated, boosted Lotus Exige, the F5 will have its own unique chassis, design and aerodynamic package formed around a carbonfibre tub housing a big ol’ American V8 with two huge turbos attached for lots and lots of power.
We were told last year that this could be in excess of 1,400bhp – all going through a single-clutch paddle-shift transmission (a dual-clutch ‘box was rejected on grounds of weight and durability), or, if you’re brave, the same six-speed manual from the old Venom.
As you can see from the video, John and his team have been very busy sculpting a car that pierces through the air yet conforms with Hennessey’s raison d’être of maximum power and minimal weight (nearly 500kg less than a Chiron) in a mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive package.
Don’t forget Hennessey has been Bugatti’s dirty dancing partner for years. As you’ll likely be aware, Hennessey’s first hypercar, the 1,244bhp Venom, hit 270.49mph on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center runway: faster than the Veyron Super Sport’s 269.86mph recorded top speed (the Bugatti’s official 267.86mph figure, if you’re wondering, was the average of its upwind and downwind runs at Ehra-Lessien).
That run wasn’t enough to pinch the official Guinness top speed crown from Bugatti - the Venom’s run was only made in one direction, not back and forth, as required - but still emphatically proved the point. The Venom wasn’t slow. And is yet to be beaten by the as yet untested top speed of the Chiron.
To make the F5 happen, a new division has been set up – Hennessey Special Vehicles – that will design, build, develop and sell the F5 from Hennessey HQ in Sealy, Texas. However, the whole world will see what the F5 looks like, and what’s underneath it, when we have all the information on November 1st, and we can't wait to see it!
