Hennessey’s Chiron-rivalling Venom F5 breaks cover

Texas-based tuning firm Hennessey has unveiled its second in-house hypercar - which it claims will dethrone the Bugatti Chiron as the fastest ever production car.

The carmaker says the Venom F5 - launched at the Sema motor show, in Las Vegas - was built to be “the absolute fastest road car on Earth”, with a projected top speed of 300mph.

Hennessey has fitted the F5 with a twin-turbocharged V8 engine that delivers 1,600bhp to the rear axle through a seven-speed single-clutch paddle shift transmission.

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This helps the hypercar go from 0-186mph in just ten seconds - faster than a current F1 car, according to the company.

Firm founder John Hennessey says: “The F5 is an all-new car, designed and built from the ground up, from the engine to the chassis.”

The car was named after “the most powerful tornado speed winds on the Fujita scale”, he adds.

Its biggest rival is the Bugatti Chiron, says Top Gear, which features a 1,479bhp quad-turbo W16 engine and a top speed of 261mph. The F5 beats that by 121bhp and 39mph respectively, although Hennessey has yet to attempt a top-speed run.

Orders for the F5 are open now, with prices starting at $1.6m (£1.2m) - around £1.1m cheaper than the Chiron.

However, Hennessey only plans to make 24 examples of the F5 and there is no word on whether it plans to sell the car outside of the US.