Hennessey Venom F5
John Hennessey is out again to prove that he’s not all hat and no cattle, and his Venom F5 is fixin’ to spoil Bugatti’s high-speed party
Batten down the hatches, stock up on Spam and prepare for war, as John Hennessey is – once again – going into battle with Bugatti for the title of the world’s fastest car.
Not that he’s ever lost the title, that is. See, the Not-Guinness-Certifed-But-Still-ChufngQuick 1,244bhp, 270.49mph Hennessey Venom GT is still, technically, the fastest car in the world. Just in one direction.
But Bugatti now has a faster car, the Chiron. And is planning a top speed run in 2018. So, not wanting to be Top Trumped, Hennessey is rearming to futureproof his pride.
With this, the Venom F5. Named after a particularly destructive breed of tornado (not the refresh button on your keyboard), it’s the latest road-legal land rocket to conform to Hennessey’s ‘Minimal Maximus’ philosophy (that’s Texan Latin for big power and lightweight), just with more aero, more tech and, of course, even more power.
For the last four years, he has been busily designing and developing this bespoke, built-from-the-ground-up, carbon-bodied, carbon- tubbed, 1,600bhp, V8 twin-turbo hyper-thing that’s got its sights set frmly on the 1,479bhp Chiron and 300mph. Maybe even beyond.
Compared with its predecessor, the F5 has made huge advances in aerodynamics – largely from not having to put a Lotus through a mangle. Thanks to being a clean-sheet design, the F5 has a much sleeker front, sculpted and functional rear (to dissipate a lot of heat), trick rear difuser and completely fat foor that makes it a lot slipperier and pointier than its predecessor.
See, everything on the F5 has been vacuumpacked into a silhouette with a drag coefcient of 0.33Cd. The Venom GT had a drag factor of 0.44Cd – meaning it’d need 2,500bhp to hit 300mph. The F5 needs less. But still a lot. 1,600bhp, to be precise.
It all comes from a bespoke 7.4-litre aluminium V8 with two hefty turbos grafted on. Chiron-esque sequential quad-turbos were discussed, but binned for being too heavy. Same story for hybrid powertrains.
“I’m a purist,” Hennessey tells us. “I like simple, elegant functionality, and that’s not a knock against hybrids, but they’re for the big OEMs to do.”
Sitting mid-ship, that monstrous engine sends all its power and 1,300lb ft of torque to two very fat, very sticky rear wheels via a seven-speed single-clutch paddle-shift gearbox. If you want a real rodeo, you can spec a manual gearbox, but we’re told that you’ll be fghting with trick GPS-based traction control all the way up to 140mph regardless – so it might be best to have both hands on the steering wheel.
Incorporating active aerodynamics, in Vmax mode, the F5 drops its rear wing and deploys some faps to plug ducts above the jutting chin spoiler to improve its aero. And the numbers predicted when in maximum attack are monstrous; 0–186mph in under 10secs (that’s quicker than Lewis Hamilton’s F1 car), 0–249mph in under 20secs and a top speed of 301mph. Yeehaw.
But even with chunky Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes, and a signifcant weight advantage (1,360kg), Hennessey isn’t concerned with getting involved with this new 0–249mph–0 battle. “I think that’s a number that the guys from Bugatti and Koenigsegg came up with because they couldn’t beat our top speed number.” Meow.
There’s currently a debate as to how exactly you’ll get in the F5 (via either gullwing, or dihedral doors), but once you are in the cabin, you’re greeted by a much more luxurious environment than the old GT. Using plenty of leather, carbon fbre, Alcantara and an Apple iPad interface, it’s positively plush. And roomy. So roomy in fact, it’ll comfortably house a 6ft 6in NFL player. And that’s not spurious marketing spiel, but a fact – as one has ordered one. So, he has to ft.
But where Chirons are constructed in the “Atelier”, an automotive art gallery-cumworkshop in Molsheim, France, John’s workshop in Sealy, Texas is where all 24 cars will be
produced for a starting price of $1.6 million. However, it won’t be frst come, frst served. Instead, you’ll have to apply to be an owner of a car, then John will handpick you as worthy of his creation, and you’ll work your way to boot camp where you can option your car with up to $600k of additional goodies. It’ll then be built sometime in the next three years but frst deliveries will start at the beginning of 2019.
We’ll see the F5 with our own eyes next month, but two prototypes will begin pounding up and down Texas next year. When a ballsy individual is set to strap themselves into the F5 to attempt the triple ton is still unknown. But, for now, it’s theoretically possible, and John has an extremely annoying habit of hitting the numbers. Let the high-speed games begin!