Venom F5 Update with John Hennessey | Venom GT Top Speed Anniversary

Hey guys, I'm John Hennessy and I'm really excited to talk to you today and give you some

update

s on our Venom fi, but before we get into what's going on with F5 and some of the

speed

records we have. I've been working towards it with this special car. I wanted to take a quick little trip back in time and talk about how you see the image behind me of our Venom GT with the American flag, held so proudly out the window by our driver Brian Smith. That picture you see behind me is from February 2014, so this week is actually WI's 10th

anniversary

.

Our Venom GT beat the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport in racing. Our car ran just over 270 mph. We made it in the 3.2 miles. long, NASA landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where they used to land the space shuttle and that was a big problem for me personally, for our family, for our company 10 years ago and it's still a big problem today and , anyway, This is a time where we would like to commemorate that talk about that a little bit and I'll give you a little bit of information about that program, so back in 2007 2008, when the idea of ​​the Venom GT came up.

It came up you know we're always looking for who's the fastest who's the best who's the benchmark who we are who we're trying to beat and at that time it was Bugatti and again Veyron Super Sport I think around 2010 I had run a two way average 267 miles per hour, something in that range, maybe One Direction ran 268 or 269, so we thought okay, that was the number, so we built a bunch of NM GTS at that time, I think maybe we built six. Seven eight cars we had a development car that we used to test the same car that we put out and with the Guinness people we set a Guinness world record for acceleration from 0 to 300 kilometers and we got that record, I think it was in 2013. but it was always the big audacious and hairy goal the label of how to beat Bugatti, how we claim the title of the fastest production car in the world and so I had done some previous testing with the Venom GT at that time I did a test. at NASA about a month before, when we set the record, I had a problem with the weather, we ran out of time, we decided to go back and test the car again, uh, and we're very lucky, the car ran at 270 uh and we had all the intention to run. in both directions, but the first day we arrived there was bad weather, so on our second day, our only or the only other day that we were able to try at that time, they said the NASA people said, hey, look, you can, You can try, you can.

Run, I think we were running from north to south. They said you can run in that direction all you want, but they said that on the north side of the track, the side we were starting from, they were testing an autonomous spacecraft called Morpheus. I think Morpheus was used to Mars and the air that the spaceship could land in and back then it had its own form of AI that could distinguish rocks, so they had Morpheus down there. I think we can show a picture and they had all these rocks, so they said you can run from north to south all you want, but you can't run from south to north because we have rocks, a spaceship, and a bunch of people working there. , so anyway we set the record and went 27.4.

Milph is so excited and we're like, well, look, we have to make this official, we have to turn around and run in the opposite direction and we realized we could, we're like, okay, well, that's no big deal. , we still beat the Bugatti, even though we did it in a good way, we published the news, the video got a lot of views, I think today it has more than 18 million views, but then we started listening to the haters say, well, you know, but you didn't. run in both directions and I'm like, well, we could have run in both directions, but on that particular day we couldn't and I thought, well, we'll sit back and wait for someone to pass our number 270 and we'll come back, we'll get the Venom GT out of retirement, we will come back and get the record, so we waited several years, actually, uh, several years later, I was in Geneva at the Geneva Motor Show and I saw the then president of Bugatti uh Wolf Gang derheimer, who now we will be friends, now he is retired but Wolf Gang was busy he was running around talking to the media and introducing I think they were introducing Chiron so this could have been 2015 or maybe it was 2016. anyway so we just chatted he said hi he walks away and he turns around and looks over his shoulder at me and winks and says, Hey, John, make sure that the next time you drive your car, you run in both directions and I thought, okay, that's a That's a fun little inquiry, uh, that's a real friend, who is he, who is he, you know, we got the competitive juices going and he's given me a little inquiry, but I haven't forgotten him, so Wolf Gang, if you're watching, uh.

We'll talk about two-way steering, uh, here in a moment, but anyway I just wanted to draw attention to our 10th

anniversary

of the Venom GT's victory over Bugatti. We only go one direction. that particular time, we moved so fast until we started building, we started, you know, we came out with the F5, the design in late 2017, we finished the first series production car during Co in late 20, at which point we started to produce cars. For other customers, we started testing the F5 on the NASA track 2 years ago, we were in the 27 mph range, but at that time my team that was working on the F5 was much smaller and we had to make the decision to that we had a lot of orders and I had to make the decision if we want to chase records or if we want to build cars and make the customers happy and make the company profitable and I chose the latter and I think it was the right choice, we had several customers who had waited uh uh in some cases several years for their cars and I told the team I said look guys we're not going to give up

speed

records with F5, that's exactly why we built the car, but we have customers that they are actually waiting to receive their car, so we made the decision at that moment to take the car to the I think we did 272 M hour, you know, not even at full power, I mean, much less than full. power, but anyway that was just kind of a testing exercise to make sure the car was right for the way our customers would drive the car, so we spent the last two years building and producing cars for customers.

I think at 22 we finished, uh 10. or 11 cars and 23, about the same number that we just finished, I think card 22 or 23 behind me that we will deliver in the next few days anyway, so again we are very focused in building and delivering great cars for our customers, you know, truly an unparalleled power-to-weight ratio, 1817 horsepower, just under 3,000 lbs. curb weight and truly a driving experience that I haven't experienced in another car from road. I've been in some race cars that may be a little slower than the F5, but it's still the fastest car I've ever driven, so where does that get us to today?

Well, again, we're back to this little rivalry with our friends from France and Germany, the Bugatti team, as well as Christian and his guys at Keg in Sweden, so in 2017, Keg took their agar RS to Nevada and they ran a two-way average of 278 mph. one way they got to 285, so at that point they had surpassed the Venom GT by 270 and it held that record for four years and when that number was surpassed, we were like, well, we have customer cars. I don't really want to borrow a customer's car to try to beat that number, but you know we're launching the F5 and that's fine, we can wait for the F5 to reclaim the title, so again, fast forward from there, ya You know.

I'm thinking to myself, okay, Bugatti, I mean, Keg had done something amazing with his Agera, uh, and I'm thinking the Bugatti guys aren't going to sit on the sidelines and do nothing, they'll sandbag him. and, therefore, whether Winkleman. Who is another friend or dirheimer? They say, "You know, it's us, we just want a comfortable car that you can take your wife to the Opera in, that's fast and I'm thinking you're a bunch of sandbags of euros and then they You know, they talk quietly, but they do want to compete, so out of nowhere and I think in September 2019 the news comes out about the uh Chiron uh super sport or the three, I guess they call it the Chiron Super Sport 300.

Also, you know, there's a certain debate about whether it was a production car because it was lighter and had a roll cage and maybe some modifications to the Arrow that aren't necessarily on street cars, but I'm not going to look. Bugatti guys because the car ran at 304.77 miles per hour, so the first production car, perhaps with some modifications, that had run over 300 mph is a great achievement. I had the opportunity to see the car. at Goodwood at festival speed a couple of summers ago. and I talked to Andy Wallace, the guy who drove it and to this day it's a monumental number, no one has come even remotely close to running those kinds of speeds, but the big door they left open for us and the barrel and maybe others is for Whatever the reason the Bugatti guys didn't race in two directions, they came out with their pressure release and are fine from a safety perspective, the way the track is designed at AOL, if we race in the Opposite direction, it's not so safe, okay?

I'll take them. on their word, but they ran in both directions with the Veron mount in 2010, so I'm not sure what's changed from a security standpoint, whether they're running 269 or 304, those are still very fast speeds, but he only ran in One Direction, so that still leaves the door open, whether it's for F5 koneg or maybe someone else, maybe remont. uh wants to join this as they run Bugatti and their electric car company of what will be the first car to exceed 300. Hour production series M Road car, we have delivered 22 cars to customers clearly, Bugatti built hundreds of chirons and kona has their tinder that they are now producing and will deliver probably over 100 cars in the next few years so those are true series production cars these are not unique eh what will be the first series car on-road production vehicle that has a two-way average of over 300 miles per hour?

That's exactly what we've been working for, this is the year we'll find out every time we post a photo, a video, Instagram, YouTube, on our website, newsletter, whatever, we'll always see the comments, When are you going to use the car, what are you waiting for? Well, now we have the car, it's off camera, uh. It's almost ready to go, we have the driver, we have the team, uh, we believe we have the car that is capable of running a number well above 300, we are not trying to reach its theoretical top speed, that aerodynamics, so to speak. , it's 32. miles 328 miles per hour, we're not trying to run 328, but we'd like to run the car with an average speed of the first car of over 300 miles per hour averaged two ways, so maybe it's 310 in one direction and 300 in the other. direction and the average is 305 or something like that, we'll see, so we have the car, we have the driver, we have the experience, uh, to do it now, the big question is where do we drive the car that we don't have. no air, we don't have our own, you know, six miles long as the crow flies, uh, on our own private proving ground, we do have our own proving ground here, but it's maybe only a hair longer than a quarter of a mile and I think this car runs. 170 degrees in about a quarter mile or a little more, so anyway, where are we going to do this?

I think right now again the tracks are not long enough, whether it's NASA or other tracks, uh in the US there's just not enough room to reach the true Vmax of our car, so I think we're looking at a public road. I think we are looking at a highway here in Texas. We have done it on two other occasions. The state, the Texas Department of Transportation, has been very kind to us and allowed us to test some new toll roads. I drove a C7 Corvette again about 10 or 11 years ago and put over 200 miles on the Grand Parkway out west. side of Houston and then a year before that we raced a Cadillac and a Camaro on State Highway 130 near Austin near the South Speedway of America, the CTSV ran 221, the Camaro I think ran 204 miles per hour , so We have some precedents that we have a good working relationship with technology in the state, so if I could wave my magic wand we would run our F5, who knows, maybe even here on the 10, we have a good stretch of I'm right here in front of our factory, but again, the logistics of that now we're delving into the possibility of that type ofoptions to run the car, but you know, ideally we would have four five six miles to fully stretch. his legs, so this is the year we're trying to do it.

I'm not making any promises, I'm not making any proclamations, but I absolutely commit that we will do everything we can to run the car safely and properly. Being the first road car with an average speed of more than 300 miles per hour, we might just get there first. Maybe Christian and Kate's boys will get the first one, maybe Bugatti will come out of retirement and say: you know what we're not done yet. I really believe it when Bugatti drove his car, I guess it was the summer of '19 uh and then they published the news in September of '19 at 3 or 4 77 miles per hour, they were actually trying to get to 500 kilometers and for some reason such Once Andy said hello.

Look, today is enough. I have risked my life. I've risked my life for a few races on the straight, but I still think that's something. Think if the engine, if we could, if we could be a fly on the wall of the Bugatti design and engineering studio, there are probably still some members of the team and engineers who are as you know. I think if we tweak this and tweak that it could get to 500,000 500,000 is a huge number with 310,000 news last week about Yesco Absolute leaving and Christian talking about how they are ready to compete for the number our hat has been in the ring .

I'm here to remind everyone that that's it. We are very determined to compete with that and see what happens. May the fastest car win. We will see the first one to arrive at 300 miles per hour. Thank you.