In 2015, Hennessey Performance took the production car top speed record from the clutches of Bugatti and its Veyron by setting a top speed one-way run of 270.49 MPH. Although it wasn’t officially recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, that didn’t stop anyone from claiming that the Hennessey Venom GT wasn’t one fast car. Just days after Koenigsegg took that unofficial record away from Hennessey performance, in an informal interview that Top Gear had with John Hennessey earlier this week (Nov. 9, 2018) John admits that Koenigsegg took the record from them fair and square. John Hennessey is going to take this record beating by sitting down. For that, he has his F5. Check out a couple of photos of the F5 he introduced at SEMA below.
Earlier this week the Koenigsegg Agera RS officially laid down an average speed run of 277.9 MPH, its clocked top speed being 284.55 MPH, an absolute barn-burner in anyone’s books. Hennessey Performance held the record with his 270.49 blast down the Kennedy Space center back in 2015.
“Those guys crushed our number and I think it’s great,” he told TG. “Christian did it right. He just played it cool and built a dedicated car to smoke everybody. He laid the hammer down.”
And what’s John Hennessey without a little drama as he later claimed that Hennessey Performance could literally take their Venom GT, dust it off, and take down Koenigsegg and their Agera record.
“Could we pull a Venom GT out of the mothball and take it out and challenge that? Possibly,”
You gotta love that confidence in his cars.
Right now, it looks like the battle to 300 MPH seems to be the laurel crown that Bugatti, Koenigsegg, and Hennessey Performance are itching to grab first. Hennessey says that he’s going to let Koenigsegg and Bugatti fight it out for a bit and let them establish their top speed runs before adding the Venom F5 into the foray. The Venom certainly has the power to take it.
The Venom F5 has 1,600 HP and 1,300 lb-ft from its twin-turbocharged LSX based V8 engine. The Agera RS, in contrast, has a little less than that.
No matter who takes the crown, at this point, it’s a case of friendly competition that’s sure to be an epic brawl of supercar proportions.
