Venom GT Spyder
Photo: fresh-imports
Records are made to be broken right? i mean that’s why you keep track of records so that the next person knows what to shoot for. For whatever reason most world records are only ones sanctioned by the Guinness Book of World Records, but that doesn’t stop everyone from claiming to beat these records all the time. One of the mot popular in the Automotive word is the production vehicle top speed.
Beautiful Venom GT
Photo: uncrate
Now first there are a few things to clarify, first the term production car is debatable with some of the cars as far as how many need to made in order to qualify for the production record. Its done that way so all these tuning companies are resetting the record every other weekend. So in order to qualify for the record there usually needs to be a couple hundred models produced. Second is in order to set a top speed record in the book of Guinness you have to complete two runs, one in each direction, to account for wind speeds not adding to top speed. This is also the case with most land speed records where you take the top speed from each direction and average it out, that would then be what is used for the record. This is why if you were to look up the world record for top speed in both convertible and hard top production cars right now it would say the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport would hold the overall record of 268mph, and the convertible held by the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse and 254mph. Should that be the case?
Well Texas Based Performance shop owner John Hennessy doesn’t bother with all that. He believes that the fastest man wins no matter what, even if it is in just one direction. He proved this in 2014 when he took his Henneseey Venom GT to 270mph technically becoming the fastest production car in the world, again even though it could be argued that the Venom is not a production car. This year happens to be the 25th anniversary of when John Hennessy followed his passion to create the fastest cars in the world so he opened up the performance shop there in Texas where he still is headquartered today. To celebrate this achievement John decided to open up the Venom GT Spyder, the convertible version of the record breaking coupe, and see how fast they could get her going with intentions of surpassing the 254mph mark set by the Veyron Vitesse. So they took this briht yellow verios of the car out to Naval Air Station Lenmore that has a good 3+ mile long runway to see what this drop top could do. Immediately the Spyder did not disappoint as it roared up past 200, 220, 240, 250 and then continued to pull all the way to 265mph before the driver was forced to shut it down due to running out of real estate. Its amazing how fast you can cover ground at over 250mph.
So in our opinion we happen to think that the Venom GT and GT Spyder both deserve to where the title of fastest production car and convertible mainly for two reasons, one we like that it provides motivation to Bugatti and other car companies to build faster cars. Second would be strictly because of how fast both cars achieved those crazy speeds. Both cars were still pulling pretty hard as they reached the top speeds the recorded so we have every reason to believe that given another gear, and more importantly a longer straight away to give more room, the Venom could go even faster. At least we are hoping, it would nice to see the new Bugatti Chiron beat the record then have the same venom GT go out and break it again. So now we ask you, Should the Venom GT be considered the fastest car in the world? Or should the title remain with the Bugatti Veyron? Let us know in the comments below.
Venom GT Spyder WR edition
Photo: venomgt.com
Venom GT
Photo: automobilemag