Hennessey Venom F5 promises 301 mph top speed

The Hennessey Venom F5 is promising to take on the £2million Bugatti Chiron in a world record fight next year.

The Venom F5 was unveiled at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas with some amazing performance figures - and a price tag to match.There's a 7.4-litre V8 with two turbochargers that'll churn out 1,600bhp.That's good enough for a 0-186mph time of under 10 seconds - quicker than Lewis Hamilton's championship winning F1 car.

And it'll hit its 301mph top speed - a record for a road car - in a little over 20 seconds, although you'll need plenty of runway to max it out.

Named after a particularly destructive type of tornado, the Venom F5 has been developed from the ground up purely focused on straight-line speed packed with carbon fibre trim to keep it light.

Founder and CEO John Hennessey said: "We’ve designed F5 to be timeless so that in 25 years it will still have a level of performance and design that will be unmatched.

"The F5 is an all new car, designed and built from the ground up, from the engine to the chassis.

"We expect the Venom F5, named for the most powerful tornado speed winds on the Fujita scale, to be the first road car capable of achieving more than 300mph and have worked closely with Pennzoil to get us across the finish line."

It's the follow up to the Venom GT which clocked 270mph but never completed an official Guinness World Record run.

It means the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport remains certified holder of the speed record at 268mph.

The Chiron is expected to top that with an official run planned in 2018 - but Hennessey believes it'll be able to top that.

Just 24 of the hypercars will be made at the Texas factory with owner John handpicking the lucky few who can then choose from the £450,000-strong options list.

It'll then be made over the next three years with deliveries due from 2019.