Hennessey’s 270mph v-max in numbers

This morning we announced with special astonishment that a Hennessey Venom hit 270.49mph. That's the highest speed ever recorded by a production car. Which, plainly, is insane. And you don't have to take its supreme talents on faith alone because we have a video. Watch it. It will ease your sluices.

Along with the Veyron SS-eclipsing footage, the kindly folk at Hennessey also sent us through all the data from its Vbox - a little electronic rectangle that uses satellites to collect devilishly accurate speed, distance, acceleration, and braking information.

With said numbers and a face full of Top Gear maths, we made some interesting discoveries...

At 202mph, the Peregrine Falcon is the fastest animal on earth. But that's 68.49mph - a massive 33.9 per cent - slower than the Hennessey. In your FACE nature.

On August 6, 1986 a modified Westland Lynx ZB500 reached a record-setting 249.1mph top speed. 21.39mph and 8.6 per cent slower than the Venom. Though, in their defence, helicopters can only travel at 250mph before the science that keeps them in their air stops working.

At 829.8 meters, Dubai's Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest building. But if you laid it flat on the ground, it'd only take 6.9 seconds to drive past the whole thing.

270.49mph is 3.86 times Britain's 70mph motorway speed limit. Which makes the Venom 286.4 per cent too fast for the UK. Conclusion: do not attempt to v-max the Venom on British roads.

Carpet the brakes in something like a 911 and you pull around 1.3gs longitudinally. Which is quite brutal, but imagine doing it in reverse... When the 1,244bhp Venom went from 20mph to 120mph in just 7.71 seconds, driver Brian Smith experienced a maximum 1.2g. That's around 0.8 more than you'd experience during take-off on a commercial flight.

It took the Venom 1,055.7 meters and 15.92 seconds to decelerate from 270.49mph to 60mph. That's less than half the distance it takes a jet like this one to land and come to a stop with maximum autobrake on (around 2550m, fact fans). And the plane's only slowing from around 160mph.

At today's exchange rate, a Venom GT will set you back approximately £600,155. That's £2,218.77 per mph. The 269.86mph Bugatti Veyron Super Sport costs £1.6m, which works out as £5,929.00 per mph. For the purposes of context, a Dacia Sandero is £61.80 per mph...

The previous fastest production car was a Bugatti Veyron, which uses a 1200bhp W16 engine, while the Hennessey packs a 1,244bhp 7.0-litre twin-turbo V8. The difference between the two is roughly the same as an original VW Beetle 1300. And, as Richard discovered, they're surprisingly fast. Just as long as you drop them from aeroplanes.

At full whack (providing you had a bowser of fuel on board, your own derestricted lane on the motorway, and a death wish), it'd take you just over three hours to get from Lands End to John O'Groats. That's 23 hours faster than the train, though probably a lot more crashy.

This is the 120m-long Cuesta da Silva Viaduct in Spain. At v-max, the Hennessey Venom GT would travel the same distance as this bridge spans in one second. ONE SECOND.

Picture credit: www.highestbridges.com