Hennessey Venom GT claims Guinness World Record

We've been talking about the Hennessey Venom GT for what seems like decades now and the verdict seems to be: it's fast. Of course, it should be. When you shoehorn a 7.0-liter V8 Corvette engine into a Lotus body, add a pair of turbochargers and channel it through two slabs of rubber in the back, the machine will move.

Technically the car began in John Hennessey's brain five years ago, and the first production car was delivered two-and-a-half years ago.

At any rate, now it's official. The Venom GT sprinted from a standstill to 186 mph (300 km/h) in a two-run average of 13.63 seconds. Guinness Book of World Records officials were on hand and Hennessey used a VBox 3i GPS logging system to keep things honest.

The runs were made at Ellington Airport, southeast of Houston. The car was the seventh vehicle produced, stretching the term “quickest production vehicle” to its semantic limits.

“We are exceptionally proud of our team at HPE who helped to make this new Guinness World Record possible,” said company founder and president John Hennessey. “This is just the first of several validation tests designed to show the world what our special car is all about -- being the fastest. Period.”

Even the Guinness official was impressed.

“I have never ridden in anything this fast,” said Guinness adjudicator Philip Robertson. “The acceleration is absolutely amazing.”

Though the record runs are measured in kilometers per hour, the Venom GT also made a 0-to-200 mph run in 14.51 seconds, verified by the VBox. According to Hennessey, the previous record to the double century mark was held by the Koenigsegg Agera R that did it in 17.68 seconds.

According to Hennessey, the company only plans to produce 29 Venom GTs, a third of which have already been spoken for at a cost of $1.2 million each. Each vehicle is custom built and takes about six months to complete.

The Hennessey team with its Guinness World Record.

By Jake Lingeman