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At the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla on Feb. 14, the Hennessey Venom GT became the world’s fastest production car. According to a press release issued by Hennessey today, the Venom clocked in at 270.49 mph, passing the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport’s top speed of 269.86 mph
According to the article, the Venom GT was accelerating at an average rate of 1 mph per second between 260 and 270 mph as it made its way down the 3.2 mile space shuttle landing runway. The record run itself was made over a distance of just 2.4 miles, leaving eight-tenths of a mile to stop.
“I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. Neil Armstrong was my childhood hero. Even though the astronaut thing didn’t work out for me, I am humbled to have had the opportunity to set our speed record on the hallowed grounds of the American space program,” said John Hennessey, Hennessey Performance found and president, in the press release. “Building and validating our Venom GT as the world’s fastest has been a long journey and a lot of hard work. But as President Kennedy once so eloquently said, ‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ As a result we have built a better car and a better team at Hennessey Performance (HPE).”
Even better, the driver who was behind the wheel of the record-breaking run, Brian Smith, said, “If we could run on an 8-mile oval we could go faster than that. On the very top end there was a little wandering but, hey, we’re going 270 mph! The Venom GT didn’t required any big corrections, and the Michelins held traction really well.
Congratulations to Hennessey for performing such an amazing feat and in our backyard no less. For more information about the world record run, view the press release below.
