When we spoke with John Hennessey at Geneva in March, the famed Texas tuner told us some juicy details about the upcoming Venom F5 hypercar. He confirmed a top speed goal of 311 mph, a figure that beats Hennessey's previous record-breaking hypercar, the Venom GT, which achieved a 270-mph top speed, good enough to dethrone the Bugatti Veyron. Automobile Magazine recently caught up with Hennessey and was told some more interesting Venom F5 tidbits.

The most exciting is that a new top speed run is being planned for early next year, "preferably in Texas." The current production car top speed record holder is the Koenigsegg Agera RS, which managed a 277.87 mph average last November. Hennessey also refused to tell AM who designed the F5, only that "he's one of the best in world" and he hails from America. The designer actually wants to remain anonymous, at least for now. During our conversation with him, Hennessey added that McLaren is his benchmark brand in regards to its family business atmosphere as well as the high churn out rate of new and high-quality cars.

We know there's sort of a friendly rivalry (and great respect) between guys like John Hennessey and Christian von Koenigsegg, so even if the F5 beats the Agera RS, we're sure von Koenigsegg will congratulate Hennessey, but will soon respond in kind. "We want the Venom F5 to be a decathlete. It can turn. It's comfortable. It's easy to drive around town. But like decathletes, it has its specialty. I want our F5's best attribute to be straight line, all-out, absolute speed," Hennessey told us. We'll find out what that absolute speed is in 2019. Expect the Venom F5 production car to debut this summer at Pebble Beach.