Fastest money can go
WE the WERE air at 200 flying mph through and it seemed seconds before we landed after hitting a bump on a dusty Nevada desert highway. I was in the passenger seat of a 600 hp Dodge Viper Venom hurtling f or 90 adrenaline- f uelled miles across closed- off State Highway 318 in a wacky races-style open road race.
The driver was a young car nut named John Hennessey who was making a name for himself upgrading performance cars.
This week, on a transatlantic call, we reminisced about that memorable adventure in 1996 as Hennessey took the wraps off the first car built from scratch to bear his name.
His new Hennessey Venom F5 is a £2 million 311 mph road and track supercar that takes its inspiration from jet fighters and aims to be the most powerful car on the planet.
It has a significant British post-Brexit vote i nput. I t was designed and engineered at Silverstone and 60 per cent of its components — apart from the engine, but including the carbon fibre single-cell chassis and trim — are British. Leatherwork is by Scotland’s Muirhead. Only 24 F5s will be built at his factory in Sealy, near Houston, Texas, which also transforms Ford raptor SUVs and pickups into more fearsome Velociraptors and has created a 1,000 hp 217 mph Camaro called The Exorcist. with two swing-up butterfly doors and ‘Speed Devil Blue’ paintwork, the Venom F5 is powered by a 6.6-litre V8 twin-turbo petrol engine called Fury — after the Sherman tank in the Brad Pitt film of the same name. This develops an astonishing 1,187 hp (equivalent to 12 Ford Fiestas) that propel it from rest to 62 mph in 2.6 seconds, up to a projected 311 mph.
Linked to a seven- speed automatic gearbox with fully manual paddle shift, it’ll also reach 124 mph in 4.7 seconds and 248 mph in 15.5 seconds. The super-loud car is so powerful owners must undergo expert training before they can unlock the final tranche of power.
The cockpit is styled on fighter jets and NASA rockets and the driver’s screen looks like something that could have come straight from Star wars.