American Supercar Takes Title of ?World?s Fastest? From Bugatti
 

The Hennessey Venom GT has set a speed record for a production car after hitting 270.49 mph on the space shuttle?s landing strip. At that speed, former race driver Brian Smith was covering nearly 400 feet per second while eclipsing the previous record of 268.86 mph held by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.

John Hennessey is a Texas boutique builder who believes that if more is better, too much is almost enough. The superlative Venom GT is a 1,244-horsepower monster fashioned by stretching a Lotus Exige, then stuffing it with a 7.0-liter Corvette ZR-1 engine with a pair of turbochargers. For those looking to own this kind of insanity, a Venom GT starts at $1.2 million.

That price is a bargain compared to Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport, the other supercar in the ongoing race for the top speed record. Hennessey and Bugatti have been competing for years, with bragging rights going back and forth between their headquarters in Houston and Alsace, France. This latest round occurred on Valentine?s Day, when Hennessey?s crew and the independent speed recorders from Racelogic descended on the 3.2-mile landing strip at Cape Canaveral. By the end of the day, Smith had made a GPS-verified run of 270.49 mph (435.31 km/hr).

American and Supercar should never be used in the same sentence

Cool car though.

So they took a Lotus and put a Corvette engine in it? That's not a supercar... It's an expensive kit car.

Cool, but when take someone else's car (A British car at that) and cram some one else's engine in it.... Not really your car, it's a mix of two other cars.

They did some work for me back in the day. Frustrating as fuck to deal with, but the Venom is legit.

:1orglaugh :thumbsup

why do they feel the need to wave the flag, pathetic behavior.

It's not a production car - they haven't built enough to qualify.

They didn't set a speed record - only made one pass and didn't do the reverse direction.