Veyron Super Sport

Make
Bugatti
Segment
Coupe

It's happened again. Top Gear has just officially revealed that the Hennessey Venom GT has hit a speed of 270.49 mph, thus topping the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport's 267.856 mph record. That's right Europe, raw Texas-bred horsepower in your face. We're still waiting for an official statement from Hennessey, but it appears that the Venom GT has hit the highest speed ever recorded by a production car.

With a total of 1,244 horsepower coming from its 7.0-liter twin-turbo GM V8, the Venom was taken to the runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on February 14 where it went from 120 mph to 220 mph in "a fraction under ten seconds." Test pilot Ben Smith, after the record run, said that "at the very top end, there was a little wandering, but hey, we're going 270mph! It was still pulling. If we could run on an eight-mile oval, we could go faster than that..." Instead, the Venom had a 3.22 mile stretch of tarmac to play with. "With another mile to run, I believe the car could do 275. Maybe 280," claimed John Hennessey himself. We'll have more details as soon as they're available.