Hennessey: ‘breaking 300mph is this year’s goal’

An American purveyor of extraordinarily fast cars has announced its intentions to spend 2024 going… extraordinarily fast. Hennessey has confirmed 2024 is the year it intends to send its 1,187bhp Venom F5 past the now mythical 300mph barrier - a feat only achieved thus far by Bugatti.

Why now, in 2024? It marks the delivery of 22 customer Venom F5s, and Hennessey’s been busy expanding the team, including the appointment of former AMG One chief engineer Brian Jones, and Pikes Peak racer David Donohue.

Plus, 2024 marks ten years since the Venom GT took the record as the world’s fastest car – hitting 270.49mph at the Kennedy Space Center – and, well, stuff like this needs a little romance, doesn’t it?

“I love that Koenigsegg is gearing up for big speed, I hope that Bugatti joins the party too – it’s rivalries like this that fuel our passion, and drive us to go faster, innovate more, and push harder,” said Hennessey boss John.

Ah, yes – ‘push harder’. The rocket that’ll (possibly) send the Venom F5 into the record books is a twin-turbo V8 called ‘Fury’, which sounds… exactly like you’d expect it to. Indeed, Jones – now VP of engineering at Hennessey – said the 1,187bhp unit has to motivate “just 1,360kg of mass”; it is, in his words, ‘peak combustion’.

“Our hypercar has a simulated theoretical top speed of 328mph,” continued Hennessey, “but we’re certainly not chasing that number. Breaking 300mph in two directions is this year’s goal, while hitting 500kmh (310.8mph) is one direction would be the ultimate way of celebrating the internal combustion engine.”

So now, attention turns to finding… a really, really big road to go really, really fast.