Hennessey Venom GT

In July 2007, the Hennessey Venom 1000 Twin Turbo Viper, an upgraded version of the Dodge Viper , won the Road & Track magazine’s hypercar test ^[1] . The car accelerated from 0 to 200 mph (321 km / h) in 20.3 seconds ^[2] . To improve performance, it was decided to abandon the Dodge Viper in favor of the Lotus Exige together with the Venom 1000 Twin Turbo engine. As a result, in the fall of 2007, the concept was officially announced on the basis of the Lotus Exige body - the Hennessey Venom GT, weighing about 1225 kg (2700 British pounds ) and a ten-cylinder engine with a capacity of more than 1000 liters. with. ^[3] The concept was drawn by British designer Steve Everitt.

Two years later, in 2009, the first photos and technical specifications of the prototype appeared. Instead of a ten-cylinder engine, he received a modified General Motors LS9 eight-cylinder engine ^[4] .

Initially, the company planned to limit the production of the model to 29 copies ^[5] . In total, from 2010 to 2016, twelve cars were produced: the first six of them were in the coupe version, the rest were a roadster ^[6] . The last car - the Hennessey Venom GT Spyder roadster called “Final Edition” - is distinguished by the blue color of the body with white stripes in the middle ^[7] . Its value is 1.2 million dollars .

Officially, the hypercar was introduced on March 29, 2010 ^[8] . A 6.2-liter LS9 engine from the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 with a mechanical supercharger boosted to 725 liters is installed in the car. with., or the same engine with two turbochargers with a capacity of 1000 and 1200 liters. with. The rear-wheel drive car with a six-speed gearbox has an adjustable suspension system and a rear wing. The body was extended by 600 mm and expanded by 300 mm ^[9] . The company planned to produce 10 cars a year with a price starting at $ 600,000 for an entry-level model (725 hp).

June 14, 2010 the first car was sent to the buyer ^[10] . The model was equipped with an engine capacity of 1200 liters. with. The manufacturer also announced the acceleration characteristics of the model with an engine capacity of 1030 liters. S .: up to 100 km / h in 2.9 seconds, up to 200 km / h - 7 s, up to 300 km / h - 14.9 s ^[11] . Tests at maximum speed by that time were not completed. The price of cars began from 725 thousand dollars for a model with 725 liters. S., 850 thousand - for 1030 liters. with. and 1 million - for 1200 liters. with. Later there was information that the model with 1200 liters. with. accelerates to 60 mph (96.5 km / h) in 2.5 seconds ^[12] .

At the end of 2011, a modification with a removable roof was announced - the Hennessey Venom GT Spyder roadster ^[13] . The car is more expensive than the coupe version by 150 thousand and costs 1.1 million dollars. Modification with a removable roof appeared due to the request of Stephen Tyler , he also became the first owner of the Venom GT roadster in May 2012 ^[14] . Changes in the design increased the weight of the car, so it was decided to also increase engine power to 1244 liters. sec., to correspond to the ratio of mass to power equal to unity. The engine capacity was also increased to 7 liters.

At the SEMA automobile exhibition in 2015, a roadster version was presented with a boost of up to 1,451 liters. with. engine ^[15] . The torque also increased to 1745 N · m, and acceleration to 96 km / h became possible in 2.4 seconds ^[16] .

In January 2013, the coupe fell into the Guinness Book of Records , accelerating to 300 km / h in 13.63 seconds, breaking the previous Koenigsegg Agera R record in 14.53 seconds ^[17] . However, in his own test of the company without representatives of the Guinness book, where the coupe practiced accelerating from zero to 370 km / h, it took him only 19.96 seconds to reach 370 km / h, and the car passed the mark of 300 km / h in 13.48 with ^[18] .

Later, on February 9, 2013, on the runway of the US Navy air base in California, the coupe accelerated to 427.6 km / h and its creators began to call the Hennessey Venom GT the fastest production car, based on the fact that the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport , which owns this the record from 2010, when it showed 431 km / h, is delivered to customers with a maximum speed limiter of 415 km / h ^[19] .

In February 2014, on the territory of the Kennedy Space Center, the coupe reached a speed of 435 km / h in a single race ^[20] . The record did not get into the Guinness Book of Records, since the average value of two races in opposite directions is necessary, as well as the volume of car output should be from 30 copies. Despite this, the company planned to release in honor of the record a special version of the car limited to three copies under the name Hennessey Venom GT “World's Fastest Edition” ^[21] . The difference from the standard version is the body color, which has red-white-blue stripes running in the center.

In the spring of 2016, the Venom GT Spyder roadster with a boosted engine of up to 1451 liters. with. developed a top speed of 427.4 km / h ^[16] . The record for the fastest open-top car was recorded by a representative of Racelogic, an independent testing company. The company also planned to celebrate this event with the release of three special versions of the roadster called "World Record Edition" worth 1.3 million ^[22] .

• Official website of the manufacturer (English)
• Official Venom GT website