The Hennessey Venom GT Spyder has set a new world speed record for open-top sports cars by hitting 427.4km/h…

THE HENNESSEY VENOM GT SPYDER is officially the world’s fastest open-top sports car. on March 25, the Venom GT Spyder was run on the 2.9-mile long runaway at US Navy base Lemoore in California with Brian Smith, director of the Ford Performance Racing School behind the wheel. The record run was certified by Racelogic technical director, Jim Lau, and witnessed by Commander Darren Fouts, Air Operations Officer, US Navy.

The Hennessey Venom GT Spyder beat the previous world record held by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport Vitesse by 11mph.

“2016 marks the 25th anniversary of Hennessey Performance”, said company founder, John Hennessey.  “I thought that this would be a special way to celebrate 25 years of making fast cars faster.  I’ve wanted to test the top speed of our Venom GT Spyder, without the roof, ever since our coupe ran 270.4 mph on the Space Shuttle landing runway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in 2014.  This was a great way to validate the technical excellence of our car which includes high-speed stability with an open roof.”

The Venom GT is powered by a twin-turbo 7.0L V8 engine producing 1082kW at 7200rpm and 1744Nm of torque at 4200rpm and puts its power down to the rear Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires via a 6-speed manual gearbox by Ricardo.  The Venom GT is capable of 0-96km/h in less than 2.4 second.

Hennessey plans to offer a limited run of three “World Record Edition” Venom GT Spyder’s to commemorate the record run and as a tribute to the company’s 25th Anniversary.  The cost is USD$1.3 million each plus tax. Ouch.

“We are grateful to have the help of so many friends, family, employees, customers and partners over the past 25 years.  We look forward to the next chapter of the Venom with the F5 as we keep making fast cars faster for the next 25 years,” said John Hennessey.