The sleek Hennessey Venom GT has broken the Bugatti record for World’s Fastest Production Car in the United States, hitting a maximum velocity of 270.49 miles per hour.
The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport held the previous record from 2010 of 267.86 mph.
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But despite edging over that 270 mark, the car can’t actually hold the title in Guinness Book of World Records because it
has to make the run twice to earn the award, Top Gear reported. In addition, Guinness requires that more than 30 of the cars be produced, and that doesn’t apply to the Venom either.
The Venom GT ran the test, piloted by race driver Brian Smith, on Valentine’s Day at the Kennedy Space Center using the runway where the Challenger sets down.
Fox News said Smith was still accelerating from that 270-mph speed when he ran out of runway room and had to slow down.
Top Gear was even more impressed with the Venom’s acceleration than with the top speed — from 120 mph to 220 mph in just under 10 seconds.
“At the very top end, there was a little wandering, but hey, we're going 270mph!" Smith told Top Gear. "It was still pulling. If we could run on an eight-mile oval, we could go faster than that."
Company owner John Hennessey told Top Gear that he thought the car could have hit 275 or even 280 if they’d had the room to make the run.
“Looking at the rate of acceleration, we’re still pulling around 1 mph per second at 270 mph,” he told Top Gear. He was happy with the test results, he added. “Since the inception of the Venom GT, it's been a dream of ours to build the fastest car. There are lots of different definitions, different metrics, but for us, when people talk about being the fastest, it's about being the absolute fastest. So it was a good day. We achieved the goal. No other road car has broken 270mph."
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