You know most of the story already and by now, you're well aware of the specs and the stats, but let's lay it out for you one more time. The Venom GT is Hennessey's latest venture at building an international-spanking supercar, combining a British chassis with an all-American powerplant.
For Hennessey, it's all about bundling maximum power into an incredible handling package. "The Venom GT is the supercar that I have always wanted to build for myself. I wanted to combine the best engineering and the best technologies with the best materials." And judging by the results, he's pretty much nailed it! The platform is the Lotus Exige, which gets chopped, stretched, and reinforced at a production facility in Silverstone, England. Back in Sealy, Texas, the Hennessey Performance shop takes the ZR1's supercharged 6.2-liter LS9 V8 and modifies it to one of three tunes.
The base model has 725-horsepower and 741 pound-feet of torque at 3,200 rpm, running on 91-octane and is the same fitting as the HPE700 Camaro. Two twin-turbocharged versions are in the works, one running on 93-octane and putting out 1,000 hp and 900 lb-ft of torque, with another 109-octane version outputting 1,200 hp and 1,100 lb-ft of torque for customers with an overblown bank account and a undeveloped sense of self-preservation.
Hooking up that prodigious power to the rear wheels is a Ricardo six-speed gearbox with a programmable traction control system to allow an estimated sub-three-second sprint to 60 and prevent unfortunate farming expeditions. But Hennessey didn't want to make this a track-only tool. "I wanted to have a road-legal car with air conditioning and satellite radio, and that had a power-to-weight ratio that is greater than just about every race car short of a Formula One car. I wanted a car that could be taken to Cars and Coffee and be parked with a Pagani Zonda on one side and a Bugatti Veyron on the other. And the entire crowd of car guys would be looking at my car instead of the other two."
While an Exige front clip might not provide the crowd-stopping presence he's after, the bodywork is plenty slippery, and Hennessey has shelled out a few ducts for computational fluid dynamic (CFD) testing, which combined with the active and adjustable rear wing, road-molesting Michelin PS2 tires and fully-adjustable suspension ensure things stay sticky when topping out somewhere north of 200 mph. And stopping the 2,400-pound carbon fiber and aluminum beast are a set of 15-inch carbon ceramic rotors, with six-piston calipers in front and four-piston units in the rear.
Hennessey is limiting production of the Venom GT to 10 units a year, and according to the company, four orders have already been placed. When asked what kind of owner he envisions for the VGT, Hennessey says, "The Venom GT buyer is the kind of person who has a lot of choices in their daily lives, but in a world with 200+ Veyron's, they want to be one of the few who owns a Venom GT. Some of our clients view cars as they would clubs in their golf bag. When they feel like reaching for a big hitter, the Venom GT will be there ready to deliver as much performance as they could ever ask for."
In addition to taking delivery of this exclusive mutant machine, each buyer will receive a one-day training program at a track in either the UK or the US, with instruction coming from one of Hennessey's own test drivers. So what's all this kit going to cost? Well, Hennessey tells us that the entry-level model will start somewhere north of $600,000, with the twin-turbo scaling larger both in output and price. An official announcement should come soon.
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