It’s the Hennessey Venom F5, the biggest – and certainly the fastest – star unveiled at the SEMA performance car trade show in Las Vegas. With a twin turbo V8 pumping out 1600bhp to the rear wheels the all-new American hypercar is claimed to have a top speed of… 301mph.
“The Venom F5 is designed and built from the ground up with one goal in mind: to be the absolute fastest road car on earth,” says the company, which is well known in the US for its extreme performance mods, including 1200bhp conversions of Ford Mustangs and Dodge Challengers. Its other star at the SEMA show is a 700bhp six-wheel drive version of a Ford pickup called the VelociRaptor.
The Venom F5 is no conversion but a model in its own right that Hennessey wants to build 24 examples of, at a price of $1.6 million (£1.2m) each. The looks may be derivative but first sight of the first yellow F5 shows it to be a step up in styling terms on Hennessey’s previous Venom GT. The all-carbon body is said to focus on aerodynamics, with low drag (the Cd is an unremarkable 0.33) the priority in order to deliver that astonishing top speed.