The desire to build the fastest road-legal car and to win the attendant bragging rights has motivated car makers since the dawn of motoring.
But as the record has moved ever higher, so the number of manufacturers chasing it has fallen, and these days it has become a very exclusive club – Bugatti, Koenigsegg and Hennessey.
Koenigsegg is the current holder, after an Agera RS managed a two-way average of 278mph on a closed stretch of dual carriageway in Nevada last year. That pipped the 270mph that Hennessey had previously achieved with the Lotus-based Venom GT at the Kennedy Space Center in 2014, although that run was one-way only and too brief to qualify for a Guinness World Record.
Now the Texan company is planning to mount a serious assault on 300mph with its first custom-built car, the Venom F5, which was shown as a styling buck at the Geneva motor show. So why is company founder John Hennessey planning to take it record breaking?
“For our clients, being the fastest really matters. They want it to be the best,” he says. “The last car went 270mph and was still pulling, but it had a massive amount of downforce and drag; it had a drag coefficient of 0.44.”
The F5 will have a carbonfibre structure with metal subframes front and rear, its shape heavily influenced by aerodynamic modelling based on its projected top speed – officially quoted at 301mph – and it will havea full-length undertray as well as a deployable rear wing. Hennessey says that the drag coefficient will be a considerably more slippery 0.33, and that number may be improved before the first production car arrives.
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Same old boring comments
I'm not saying my opinion is right and yours is wrong, but whenever there is something interesting on Autocar people always moan about it. Typical British boreoffs.
HHX621 - Spot on, mate. At least you know the score!
Lesia44 - Surely JH knows his customers better than you? People have pre-ordered them, which proves the point.
Clearly we are at the point of diminishing returns, but if people want to do this type of thing then good on them. Otherwise, why bother with anything? Why play football? Why bother getting out of bed? Why, why, why...
If things like this annoy you, then stick to your 1.1 Fiesta diesel and read a knitting magazine, grandma!
Right up there.......
About as relevant as the self parking Car, yes it can get into a space you couldn’t get into,but, how do you get back out?
Dear Mr Hennessey No, it
Dear Mr Hennessey No, it doesn't. Regards Almost Everyone.