Corvette Power Helps Hennessey Venom F5 Shoot for 290mph

The Hennessey Venom GT has made a name for itself as being one of the top two fastest cars in the world – challenged only by the Bugatti Veyron. While the Venom GT holds a collection of speed records, the Texas tuner wants to claim back the Bugatti’s production car top speed record and they aim to do so with the new Hennessey Venom F5. Like the Venom GT, the F5 will be powered by a super tuned version of the 7.0L GM V8 that powered the C6 Corvette Z06, but unlike the GT – the F5 will have 1,400 horsepower. The company hopes that the new design of the F5 and the incredible power output of 1,400 horsepower will allow this new supercar to hit a top speed of 290 miles per hour.

That is 290 miles per hour from a Hennessey Venom F5 that will be street legal – at least in some places.

"We are very excited about this next chapter of the Venom, which brings forth an all-new design that is not only a powerful and unique statement that our clients are looking for, but a vehicle that will achieve even higher performance through improved aerodynamics," said company president and founder John Hennessey. "We learned a great deal during the development of the Venom GT in breaking the 270-mph barrier, and we bring that experience to this new design as we look toward raising the performance bar even higher."

The Hennessey Venom F5 Will Be a Monster
The Hennessey Venom GT is unquestionably one of the nastiest performance cars ever built anywhere in the world and we can expect the Venom F5 to be even nastier. The Venom GT is so incredible because it is very aerodynamic, very light and thanks to a heavily modified GM 7.0L V8; it is very, very powerful. The Venom F5 will have to be better in every way and the Hennessey built twin turbo Corvette engine will play a big part in the goal of hitting 290 miles per hour – offering at least 1,400 horsepower with the help of larger turbochargers and a revised intercooler setup. With power figures like that, it is fitting that the F5 is named after the most powerful and most destructive tornadoes…which also happen to be the fastest moving storm forces.

Like the Venom GT, the Hennessey Venom F5 will be based on the Lotus Elise chassis, but we can expect new body work to yield far better aerodynamic properties than the GT…while likely weighing even less as well.

Chasing the Top Speed Record
The Hennessey Venom GT is one of the most powerful and fastest cars in the world, with records including the fastest run from 0-186 (13.63 seconds) and the fastest run from 0-200 (14.51 seconds). These incredible speeds are reached by a unique twin turbocharged 7.0L V8 engine that is similar to the engine offered in the C6 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. The Corvette makes 505 horsepower with the standard GM V8 – the Venom GT packs 1,244 horsepower with the help of the massive twin turbo setup from Hennessey. This stunning power output allowed the Venom GT to make a top speed record run of 265.7 miles per hour, but that number would be bested by the Bugatti Veyron’s run of 267.856mph. Hennessey took to the track again to reclaim their top speed record and with a run of 270.49 mph, they had seemingly done so.

Unfortunately for the Texas tuner, the Guinness Book of Records then-new production car rules stated that there had to be at least 30 vehicles to apply to the production car records. Only 16 examples of the Venom GT have been built so even though the GT went faster than the Veyron – the record didn’t count with the Guinness people.

Hennessey aims to fix that problem with the new Venom F5. The company plans to build 30 examples of the 1,400 horsepower supercar so it will conform to the Guinness production car records and with a goal of hitting 290 miles per hour – it will absolutely decimate the Bugatti’s top speed record. The F5 could be a street legal production car that will go almost 300 miles per hour.

Look for the Hennessey Venom F5 to debut sometime in 2015 and when it does, expect a price tag that could start near $2 million.