Hennessey Venom F5 is no longer aiming for 300mph
And that's because they're aiming even higher...
Yes, you read that correctly: the Hennessey Venom F5 - the car that was tipped to be the world’s first 300mph production car upon its debut at Sema in 2017 - is officially no longer aiming to achieve 300mph. But before you all start spitting insults into John Hennessey’s Twitter notifications, there’s a very understandable reason why the company isn’t aiming directly for 300mph - it’s because they want to go even faster!
Perilously close to the previous 300mph target - just 10.69mph away, to be precise - is the magical 500kph barrier. For this is now the goal of Hennessey - to achieve 311mph from the Venom F5, thus eclipsing 2 speed barriers in one go.
While that may sound overly ambitious, Mr Hennessey talks a very confident talk. Upon the F5’s initial unveiling, the 7.6L Twin-Turbo V8 was said to produce “at least” 1600bhp, all of which was sent to the rear wheels via either a 7-speed paddle shift or 6 speed manual gearbox. Yes, really - a 1600 horsepower manual megacar!
The words “at least” strongly imply that the engine will be as powerful as it needs to be in order to achieve the speeds that John Hennessey requests. According to him, the F5 requires “only” 1520bhp to achieve 300mph, and having tested the engine all the way up to over 2000bhp, he’s certain it’ll have enough in it to push the F5 to 311mph or beyond. That said, all their predictions so far are the result of computer calculations; what happens in the real world when they start testing may prove to be an entirely different matter.
The serious testing for the F5 will commence next year, with a top speed run hopefully happening by the end of 2019. If it absolutely can’t achieve 311mph, then John Hennessey has stated that he is willing to do a special version with even slipperier aerodynamics outside of the production run of 24 standard F5s. If you ask me, this man’s on a mission, and he isn’t going to stop until he accomplishes it.
But now I want to ask you guys: what do you think about Hennessey aiming for 500kph? Do you think he’ll achieve it with his F5, or do you think he’ll need to go back to the drawing board and make it even more aerodynamic? Let me know in the comments.
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Photo credits: Hennessey
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Comments (13)
Well, it looks stunning and I’m sure, it will go like hell, but 500 kph seems very ambitious...
There’s more than just power and aerodynamic behind it..for example you need tires, that are able of handling such power and speed, the wheels in general face very strong forces, as well as suspension etc..
So they might reach that speed..although I’m not sure how they gonna manage it..
Question is how often, before the car starts disintegrating..
Well umm good luck
Vapourware. Let’s talk about it when they have something more than computer renders and the tyres to handle the speed they are talking about.
Yeah, sure... 🙄
Ask Clarkson were both from yorkshire.what would a yorkshireman do to better aerodynamics. ,easy,cover it in LARD,OR MUCKY FAT ,IT WILL BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER