New rival of Bugatti

Bugatti's stranglehold on the title of the world's fastest road car has come under threat from a little-known American challenger.

Texas tuning company, Hennessey, has claimed its Lotus-based Venom GT is now the world's fastest production car after it recorded a top speed run of 427km/h at a US Naval air base in California recently.

While Bugatti's million-dollar Veyron Super Sport has officially recorded a top speed of 431km/h - and is recognised by Guinness World Records as the fastest production car - it was recorded with the car's 415km/h electronic speed limiter removed on a nine-kilometre straight section of Volkswagen's high-speed test track.

Company founder, John Hennessey, claims his Venom GT should claim the title as the Veyron Super Sport wasn't in the specification available to customers.
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"While a Veyron Super Sport did run 267.8 mph [430.98km/h], Bugatti speed-limits its production vehicles to 258mph [415km/h]," Hennessey said. "Thus, at 265.7mph [427.60km/h] the Venom GT is the fastest production car available to the public."

And if not, the company is confident the car will go even faster - potentially reaching 445km/h - given the same distance as the Veyron.

"While the 2.9mile [3.2km] long runway is more than enough acceleration distance for a F/A-18 fighter jet, it was far too short for the Venom GT to reach it's true top speed," added Hennessey Performance CEO, Don Goldman.

It's not as though the Venom GT hasn't already been recognised as being fairly rapid. It holds the Guinness record for the quickest accelerating production car, rocketing from 0-300km/h in 13.63sec - around the same time it takes a SS Commodore to achieve half that speed.

The Venom GT is based on a Lotus Exige chassis but its supercharged four-cylinder engine has been replaced by a handbuilt twin-turbo 7.0-litre V8 that produces in excess of 925kW and, unlike the all-wheel drive Veyron, transmits the outrageous amount of power to the ground  through only the rear wheels.

Hennessey plans to build a total of 29 of the carbon fibre Venom GTs - coincidentally one less than Bugatti's Veyron Super Sport edition - each costing a little more than $1.1 million. It claims that more than one-third have already been sold in the United States.

Hennessey's position goes against the current trends from traditional hypercar brands, such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren, which have all admitted the Veyron's top speed mark has become unbeatable, but also irrelevant.

Instead, McLaren believes its new plug-in hybrid P1 flagship has been designed to be the fastest car around a racetrack while Ferrari has headed down the same path with its LaFerrari.


/Smh.Com.Au/