The days of the Bugatti Veyron reigning as the king of top speeds may soon be numbered as John Hennessey and his team has been working relentlessly to improve their Venom GT supercar. Based on the Lotus Exige, the team had highly modified this nimble and lightweight car into a straight line monster that one should never overlook.
And now, the team was able to take the Hennessey Venom GT into uncharted territories, thanks to the help of NASA where they allowed them to use the John F. Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility runway. Taking the twin-turbocharged V8 supercar down the massive runway, the Venom GT was able to clock a record-breaking speed of 270.49 mph, which translates into 435.2 kmh, faster than the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport’s 269.86 mph (434.3 kmh).
That is undoubtedly a blisteringly fast top speed, but like all top speed claims, this one could not escape from the usual controversies. For starters, in order to qualify as a production car record, there should be at least 30 cars built by the manufacturer. To date, Hennessey has built 29 orders and delivered 11 of them. Also, the car would have to make the run in both directions, which was impossible in this case as John and his team were only allowed to push the car in one direction on the runway by NASA themselves.
Nevertheless, this is still a great achievement from the boys who took a Lotus and turned it into something it is not supposed to be in the first place. If they are given a bit more runway for the test, do you think that the Hennessey Venom GT could actually hit 280 mph?
