Henessey Venom GT

In 2007, Road & Track Magazine invited Hennessey Performance to participate in a shootout between some of the world’s fastest supercars. They were going to find out which car could accelerate from 0 to 200 mph in the shortest amount of time. Some of the cars competing where the Mercedes-Benz SLR Mclaren, the Lamborghini Murcielago, the  RUF Porsche 911 Twin Turbo and the 1001 bhp all-wheel drive Bugatti Veyron 16.4. For their entry,  Hennessey  brought the company’s latest creation, Venom 1000 Twin Turbo Viper. Several runs were made by each car on the 2.9 mile long runway at Lemoore Naval Air Station in central California. At the end of the day, the Hennessey Venom 1000 Viper was crowned king of the ROAD & TRACK "Speed Kings" shootout by posting the quickest time of the day by running 0 to 200 mph in an astonishing 20.3 seconds. By comparison, the 2nd place Bugatti Veyron 16.4 was nearly 4 seconds behind the Venom with a time of 24.2 seconds.

At the end of the Road & Track test, Hennessey was very pleased with the results and the Venom taking first place over the Veyron. "As far as I am aware, we have the only car that has ever beaten a Veyron in an independent, head to head test of vehicle performance. While we were quite happy with that accomplishment, it did not take long for me to begin thinking about what could we do to improve the performance of our car." -John Hennessey

One day he joked about putting the Venom 1000 Twin Turbo engine in the back of a Lotus Exige. Then they thought, let’s do a sketch and see what that might look like. When John saw the sketch, he really started to seriously think about the idea. They then had a few more detailed renderings made. When he saw the drawings, he thought: "we can build this car with 1000+ hp and a weight well under 3000 lbs. A mid-engine design like the Ford GT will put the weight of the motor and transmission over the rear tires giving better traction. Design as much downforce as we will need to have a car that handles like a kart on the road or race track. At the same time also have a car with the best power to weight ratio possible giving unmatched acceleration. This is how the Venom GT concept was born. 

The Venom GT has a 7 liter aluminum V8 engine, that produces 1244 bhp @ 6600 rpm (Cockpit adjustable from 800 bhp, 1000 bhp & 1244 bhp) and 1155 lb-ft of torque @ 4400 rpm

Credits: venomgt95