Hennessey Performance Engineering's latest project-car news is the Venom GT, which is based on the Lotus Exige. Like the Ford GT-derived GT1000, it combines both a supercharger and a pair of turbocchargers.
But Hennessey being Hennessey, the Exige's stock, supercharged 1.8-liter inline-4 was immediately excised in favor something more manly: the Corvette ZR1's 6.2-liter LS9 V8, conveniently also supercharged.
Hennessey claims the finished car will make over 1,000 horsepower just as the GT1000 reportedly did. The same Ricardo six-speed manual will drive the Exige's rear wheels, and it's hoped that the finished, 2,395-pound car will hit 60 mph in 2.6 seconds. For comparison, we timed the 3,485-pound GT1000 at 3.7 seconds to 60. Hennessey also says it's aiming for a 262-mph top speed for the Venom GT.
Plans have been made to take the car to the Nurburgring Nordschleife, where Hennessey is betting the Venom Exige will break 7 minutes -- quite a claim when you remember that the Corvette ZR1 reportedly ran a 7:26 there
In the pictures here you can see the first right-hand-drive prototype that's being built in England. Once finished, the car will look like this (right). Hennessey says it has 3 orders in so far for this monster of an Exige. If the demand is there, the company would plan to build 10-12 Venom GTs in a year. Considering the slower GT1000 cost $250,000, though, we wouldn't make any bets.
Full Test: 2006 Hennessey GT1000 Twin Turbo
cwmoo740 says:
05:20 PM, 12/18/09
Wow, that's an amazingly fast car. I didn't know that it was 6x faster than the world land speed record car, if it's pulling 6630 mph in average speed around the 'ring to finish in 7 seconds. /end sarcasm
There's a typo, btw. I think it should be 7 minutes =]
eriches says:
06:38 PM, 12/18/09
@ cwmoo740: Oops. Yes. Thought I'd corrected that typo, but obviously not. Now it's done. - E. Riches
f1ndler says:
05:44 PM, 12/19/09
It should be sold only to the people with a pilot license.