Hennessey Venom GT2 - totally outrageous

There are sportscars, then supercars and now hypercars. The terms have changed over the decades as the cars evolved. 200hp was once considered a big figured but now 200hp is available in many family saloons and even numerous small cars have this kind of horsepower. Family saloons like the mannered BMW 5 series easily muster over 300hp in the 535i now.

In the early 1990s Mclaren introduced the F1 which was a first of its kind to offer over 500hp. In fact this car had 600hp and was the pinnacle of sportscar development. It was actually the first supercar so to speak. The car combined massive horsepower and a very light weight body. This means awesome performance and this performance figure stood for more than 1 decade before any other car could even come close to matching it.

In terms of car jargon, a sportscar is something that produces anything up to 350hp and could achieve a 0-100km/h acceleration time of about 5 seconds. Top speed would be 250km/h to 280km/h. An example would be Porsche Boxster / Cayman, BMW Z4 or Honda S2000.

A supercar is something that produces around 550hp and could achieve a 0-100km/h acceleration time of under 4 seconds. Top speed would be 300km/h to 320km/h. An example would be Mclaren MP4-12C or Ferrari 458.

A hypercar is something that produce from 550hp onwards to well over 1000hp and could achieve a 0-100km/h acceleration time of around 3 seconds or less.Top speed would be 330km/h and above. An example would be Lamborghini Aventador or Bugatti Veyron.

Now we have hit an era of crazy development where certain boutique car manufacturer's such as Hennessey have gone all out to develop psycho hypercars. They have basically taken the term hypercar and tore it apart. Why is that? The latest Hennessey Venom is nothing short of phenomenal in terms of performance. The Bugatti Veyron has 1001hp but it weighs over 1600kg! the Hennessey Venom has 1500hp but weights less than 1,000kg!! Imagine the acceleration of this car and you will realize that your internal organs may protest violently when you put your right foot down.

The performance of the Hennessey Venom is nothing short of staggering. It has more power per tonne than a Formula One car and it can be driven daily.

Where is the limit to hypercar development? Is 1000hp the new 500hp from 10 years ago?