From an outsider’s perspective, it might appear as though supercar companies are just flooding the market with one new product after another and not facing much in the way of challenges. In reality, though, the hurdles automakers leap over to produce such wild cars are numerous and tall.
Case in point is a crash suffered last week when a Hennessey Venom F5 lost control during a 250 mph high-speed run. The driver still managed to walk away without injury.
The car in question was running a new aerodynamic set-up according to John Hennessey himself. Owned by the automaker itself, this prototype wrecked when the car lost downforce during a 0-250 mph run. Things were evidently going well to that point as Hennessey points out that the car needed under 4,000 feet to reach that speed.
For context, that’s far less than the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut needed for its recent 0-250-0 mph run. How? The Venom F5 in factory form makes 1,817 horsepower and the company says its track-focused Revolution Coupe makes 800 pounds of downforce at 186 mph which swells to 1,400 pounds at 249 mph. Whether this was a Revolution-style setup or something else is currently unknown.
In any case, the real work begins now to determine exactly what caused the loss in downforce. Hennessey didn’t go into any additional details. It’s unclear what type of Venom F5 this prototype most closely resembles, what sort of total damage was done, and what effect the crash had on efforts to go 300 mph this year.
While we might not have information on the details here like the aero equipment, what went wrong exactly, and what type of Venom F5 this was, the most important detail is there. The fact that the driver escaped without injury is just one more testament to the safety equipment in cars like this.
This isn’t the first hurdle for a brand like this and it won’t be the last. The team over at Shelby Super Cars had its own struggles during testing. While it didn’t crash, high winds and ill-positioned braking cones were enough for SSC to give up trying to reach 300 for now. Interestingly, both the Tuatara and the Venom F5 had these issues at the Kennedy Space Center.
The use of KSC is kind of interesting as this place is the Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds when being used for this kind of testing. Bohmer is an interesting guy and a speed chaser in his own right. While the United States lacks a modified high-speed track like VW’s Ehra-Lessien facility, it does have a few shuttle landing facilities like KSC. Boehmer was the first to realize that a 15,000-foot, entirely level surface designed to land space shuttles is also perfect for high-speed runs.
John Hennessey ended his post about the crash with an appropriate quote. “As President Kennedy once said, many years ago, “We don’t do these things because they are easy. We do them because they are hard”.
Somebody, some where, had big wad of money evaporated in about 3 seconds
This is exactly what you say when the guy doesn’t die. Nice job John.
If someone wants to give me money for a Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut, I too can add a shitty tune and body kit, call it something else (Maybe Kingegg Yeetsco Absolute F42069?) and then claim to be one of the greatest car makers ever? Please and thank you.
Nobody gave Hennessey a Lotus Elise, he bought one. He then modified it enough to qualify as it’s own car and started reproducing them, which big car companies do all the time – I would remind you that all those Hellcats are just Hemi CLKs and E-Classes, but you talk very smart so I’m sure you already knew…
Hey everyone, we’ve found Hennessey’s account! Pro tip for next time, you’d be less obvious if you didn’t reply to every comment.
Just to clear up some misinformation. It was reported elsewhere that the Venom F5 is being sold on Show & Display status. It is not. S&D is reserved for imported cars, which the F5 is not, and regardless it does not appear on the S&D approved list anyway. https://www.nhtsa.gov/document/vehicles-determined-eligible-importation-show-or-display-0
It’s interesting to note that cars on S&D still need to pass U.S. EPA certification as submitted by either the factory or an aftermarket shop, of which there are a handful who specialize in such work. The F5 has no such certificate of which I’m aware.
Furthermore, Hennessey has never applied for, nor received a WMI from the SAE, which means he cannot even assign legal VINs to his cars. I know that F5’s are being sold with VINs that begin with HSV (Hennessey Special Vehicles), which is contrary to established convention and regulations. It’s akin to a kit car VIN, which as far as I can tell is the only way Hennessey cars can be registered in the U.S.
(There are similar discrepancies when examining the SSC Tuatara.)
John Hennessey really, really wants to be known for producing the world’s fastest car and establish himself among the pantheon of automotive giants. But there’s a huge difference between his work and that of Koenigsegg, Pagani, Rimac, and Bugatti.
It’s probably me just being excessively pedantic and in the end the internet won’t care, it just bothers me when people cut corners the others have had to figure out how to negotiate properly, to achieve the same accolades.
What kind of eletist nonsense is this? Hennessey can’t afford to build the dedicated testing and engineering facilities of those companies, but that doesn’t mean he’s cutting corners or that his cars don’t deserve accolades.
Big companies make mistakes all the time. Remember the CLK-GTR? They flipped two of those and they still raced it, then IT FLIPPED IN LE MANS! Was Mercedes-Benz cutting corners on their million dollar prototype? No!
Aerodynamic engineering is hard, the rules constantly shift-the pressures on a car at 240mph with no wind are completely different from the ones at 250mph with a 3mph crosswind, and there’s things that happen in real life that computers just can’t calculate.
I’m judging this by one fact-the driver walked away unharmed, which means it’s a good, safe chassis.
I never said the car wasn’t safe or stable at speed. I’m not qualified to determine whether it is or isn’t.
What I’m saying is the car isn’t built within the rules of any homologation set. Which is precisely what makes production car speed records more difficult, and why they are their own subset. Anyone can put a loud, powerful, dirty engine in a chassis and go fast. When it also has to meet emissions regulations? When the car itself has to pass FMVSS requirements and crash testing certification? All that’s a LOT harder.
It’s a good looking car, I’ll say that. I know it’s loaded with horsepower. There’s a massive chasm between it and the others I mentioned however, in terms of the work put into getting it onto the market. Some have gone through the trouble of satisfying road homologation, this one has not. So whatever performance metrics it achieves, are they really a fair comparison between it and the others?
And saying it’s U.S. road legal on Show & Display regulation is an outright lie.
I’m really glad the driver walked away, otherwise John Hennessey would be stealing his organs to pay for the engine he stole from a customer’s Corvette to build the F5.
When I see the Venom F5, all I can think is it’s a pretty skin wrapped around the most basic drivetrain and chassis setup. I seriously doubt they have any real investment beyond basic wind tunnel and off-the-shelf traction control. It’s a pretty, dumb missile.
Whereas I expect pretty much everything in the Koenigsegg to be bleeding edge and actually works WELL.
This. I see an aging LMP2 platform with an NHRA street-spec LS and some coachwork, each designed by a completely different team with a different goal.
You say that like it’s a BAD thing… Would you thumb your nose at a Saleen S7, or an Ultima GTR? It’s basically the same thing!
I wouldn’t, because the Saleen S7 was a homologation run for an actual race car that beat equally race-ready McLaren F1’s and Porsche GT1’s. If Hennessey had any intention of racing the F5, I might give it some credibility.
The F5 is a kit car that was granted a VIN by some loophole or other. It’s not a production car or a race car, yet it exists exclusively to race against production cars and claim “production” records. Ultima is honest about making kit cars, and Saleen is honest about making racing cars. Hennessey made a racing car that can’t be raced so they could parade around with an imaginary trophy. If they had an actual racing team competing against other homologated race cars, then I’d be impressed.
For context, that’s far less than the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut needed for its recent 0-250-0 mph run. How?
Because Hennessey can say the performance is whatever he wants it to be since he knows it doesn’t matter whether his not-really-street-legal car can actually do it.
For context, that’s far less than the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut needed for its recent 0-250-0 mph run.
To be faaaaair… the Koenigsegg did manage to accomplish this feat in one piece with all four wheels on the ground.
I don’t think Mr. Koenigsegg is a thief.
On the other hand, John Hennessey is a thief.
I love ripping on JH and Hennessey et al, but the important bit is the driver walked away. Very good thing they didn’t kill a man.
Unless, of course, John Hennessey was driving.
John Hennesey is a thief.
Don’t hold back, how do you really feel?
Personally, I don’t think thieves deserve to die
John Hennessey was last seen tip-toeing away from the crash site with a sack full of parts to resell to customers while laughing maniacally.
1400lb of downforce doesn’t sound like a lot for what they’re doing. The McMurtry Speirling electric track car produces 4400lb and weighs 2200lb. Even a pretty basic early 2000s F3 car produces around 1400lb of downforce, but at more like 130mph. UK Hillclimb single seaters have an upside down speed (ie when downforce = mass) of around 90mph.
In fear of stating the obvious, and a fair bit of oversimplification, downforce is paid for with drag, and drag robs you of top speed. An F1 car pays an awful lot for all that downforce, but collects a lot of interest with insane cornering speeds.
1,400 pounds of downforce at 249mph. Real useful in a street car.
Do you also complain about 911 GT3s? Those make a ton of downforce, too…
No. Because they aren’t trying to make it at 249MPH! They make it at speeds more reasonable for the road. 249mph is faster than most race cars go. Why does this have a license plate?
Cool – you’re full(er) time now!
But now it does seem that 1) you’re not in fact the frontman of Weezer as I’d wondered before and 2) a naming convention showdown with SWG may be coming.
Just buy an old Reynard-Honda Champ Car and take it to Michigan, you can go 250 all day.
The best fox body
We don’t do these things because they’re easy, we do them so we can sell ridiculous cars to people with obscene amounts of money.
Hennessey probably stole the rear wing to finish a local customer’s car.
We don’t do these things because they are easy. We do them because we thought they would be easy.
How hard can it be?
It’s a real pity the entire scamming company wasn’t destroyed in the crash.
I agree. The important thing to remember about this story is that John Hennessey is a thief.
The amount of favorable press the guy has gotten for the last 30 years compared to his actual accomplishments and proven track record screwing over customers boggles the mind.
He delivers pre-written articles to bloggers under pressure to produce in volume.
If he delivered cars and parts as well as he delivered self-promotion, I wouldn’t have a problem.
John Hennessey is a thief.