The Venom is a High-Performance Car with a Unique Design

This car has an overview of everything that makes it unique and exciting. The transmission, alternator, and overflow tank are all easily accessible, allowing owners to work on their vehicle with ease. The design of the car is quite straightforward, with no fancy carbon cover to obscure the serious business of the engine. Instead, the focus is on showcasing the heart of the car, which does the business very nicely.

The Top Speed Mode

One of the most impressive features of this car is its top speed mode. With a simple click of a button, the wing can be adjusted to optimize performance. When the wing is up, it provides significant downforce at high speeds, allowing the car to carve through corners with ease. However, when driven on winding roads like Mulholland, the arrow system begins to work its magic, providing an effective increase in speed. The exact speed at which this occurs varies depending on the driver's skills, but one thing is certain: it makes a huge difference.

Downforce and Performance

The Venom's downforce capabilities are truly impressive. At 150 miles per hour, the car produces around 800 pounds of downforce with the wing up. This is equivalent to an air brake system, but without the added weight and complexity. The hydraulic requirements for such a system were deemed too high, so it was abandoned in favor of this clever solution.

Parking and Access

One of the unique challenges of owning a car like the Venom is its wide rear end. Parking becomes a bit more complicated, requiring a wider berth to accommodate the vehicle's size. However, with some practice, owners can master the art of parking their car without too much trouble.

The Car's Details and Features

A closer look at the Venom reveals many impressive details and features. The 19-gallon gas tank is one of the largest in its class, providing ample fuel for long road trips. The carbon fiber interior is both stylish and functional, adding a touch of luxury to the driving experience. One of the most exciting aspects of this car is its sound system – it's designed to produce a thrilling exhaust note that will leave onlookers in awe.

Driving Experience

The Venom's driving experience is nothing short of exhilarating. The engine produces an astonishing amount of torque, making the car feel almost go-kart-like in its responsiveness. Unlike many modern supercars, which often sacrifice driving excitement for comfort and convenience, the Venom puts the focus squarely on the driver. There's no power assist to speak of, so the steering is incredibly direct and engaging.

A Rare Breed: Street-Legal Supercars

In an era where performance cars are increasingly compromised by emissions regulations and safety features, the Venom stands out as a refreshing anomaly. This car is both fast and fuel-efficient, making it an attractive option for those who want to experience the thrill of high-performance driving without sacrificing practicality. With its combination of impressive power, responsive handling, and street-legal credentials, the Venom is truly a special vehicle – one that's sure to turn heads on the road.

Burnouts

One of the most iconic aspects of performance cars is the burnout, a thrilling display of speed and style that leaves onlookers in awe. Traditionally, mid-engine cars have struggled with burnouts due to their instant torque delivery, making them less suitable for this type of driving. However, the Venom's engine produces enough lag to make it possible to execute a smooth burnout – thanks to its clever design and the driver's skill.

A Closer Look at the Engine

The Venom's engine is a marvel of modern technology, with a power output that would be impossible in lesser vehicles. But what makes this car truly special is not just its performance capabilities but also its accessibility. With a simple software update, the driver can unlock even more potential from their vehicle, making it an incredibly engaging and rewarding driving experience.

The Final Verdict

For those who want to experience the ultimate driving thrill without sacrificing practicality, the Venom is a car worth considering. Its unique blend of performance, handling, and style makes it a standout in its class – and with its street-legal credentials, it's an even more exciting prospect. Whether you're a seasoned enthusiast or just starting out on your driving journey, this car has something to offer everyone.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to the episode of jay leno's garage we're here once again with the hennessey venom now you might remember a while back we did a road test we didn't do a road test we had john here with the car you saw it on the cover road and track you've seen it on the cover of everything well when he brought it to the garage we couldn't drive it because it wasn't legal and i have to admit after john left i went you know i don't think you're ever going to legalize that thing i mean you can sell it around the world in saudi arabia you're not going to be able to sell it here well never underestimate hennessy this thing is now legal in all states 1200 horsepower let's bring john in john how you doing hey jay john hennessey as you see from last time john has got a new hairstyle more layered uh i'm trying to keep up with you more highlights more things you see because because you're going to sell these kind of cards you're moving into my texas smaller world that's right right absolutely when we do jay leno's haircare products and stuff we'll we'll have you back i appreciate that i need a little help but yeah yeah but uh i have to admit i i did say to my guys he's never going to get that certified i mean it's it's a bit of this a bit of that but you managed to do it and the car is now legal here in the united states and it's is it a million dollars it's a million bucks a million bucks even and that's floor mats and all the other little 1200 horsepower and 100 horsepower commando okay and you're going after the veyron's record is that correct correct correct the purpose of the car wasn't to beat the veyron super sports record but we feel like the car is capable of doing it so why not so it's fun why not absolutely it needs to come back to america take away from those french and german guys that's true that's true and i have to admit i'm i i get a little worried about this high speed run because there's nowhere in america you can really do that you know to me all the fun of a car is really between 40 and 120 and that's really where this goes absolutely i mean if it happens to go 260 miles an hour well that's great too but the idea of doing doing that on a public road please please so but but i hope you break the record and i have no doubt believe me breaking that record is easier than getting one of these certified in the united states that should be easy to do and the 1200 horsepower and what about 2700 pounds 2700 pounds so it's basically one horsepower per kilo i mean you're easily not half the weight of average but pretty close yeah it's about a 1300 pound difference pound difference pretty amazing okay what's different from the last car we saw well the i guess this is the fifth car that we've built today uh all carbon fiber brembo carbon ceramic brakes the cars are very similar in terms of what you see but it's it's details it's refinement in every car that we've built now that we built five cars and have a six car under construction now we're able to just basically take our product and refine it so you'll find when we go drive it that it you can poke around in traffic and it doesn't run hot cold and a proper gearbox absolutely yeah we had we were using the the original lotus shifter before and now we've taken that out we're using the ford gt shifter it's the same ricardo transmission right that comes with the four gt so it'll feel just like your ford gt going down the road and it can take that kind of horsepower absolutely and that's why we went with the ricardo box out of the ford gt we built over 44 gts including one that with twin turbo package with a thousand horsepower that jesse jesse james stuck in the ditch a couple weeks ago yeah yeah so it was very reliable and tires are cheap clutches absolutely exactly absolutely this is a driver's car so there's no traction control no abs this is a car that requires you to drive it now if if a person wanted a uh paddle shift box is it available or not it's something that we're looking at for for future down the road but right now it's a standard six speed always astounded at how few people actually order a manual gearbox i mean ferrari doesn't even make a manual gearbox anymore because like one out of every 20 cars or something right i mean it's astounding to me because to me that's the whole fun of driving yeah i mean my mclaren f1 is 243 but the the real fun is just driving and shifting and using it uh you know executing a a perfect gears is a lot of fun and you don't always do it correctly yeah this does look a little more refined than the last one that you had let's see what we got here and this is a target top it comes off not yet we're working on a spider version we're going to make a few structural reinforcements technically you could take the roof off of this car but we're not suggesting that our customers do that we have a few things that we're going to do differently on the chassis but we will have a spider version of the venom gt coming out as a 2013 uh sometime next year now for the for people who missed the last time we did this because we didn't drive the car just a brief uh overview the engine is what it's a 6.2 liter uh based on a small block chevy twin turbo 1200 horsepower we can adjust between 850 1000 and 1200 horsepower now when you say based on what are we talking about you start with the chevy block correct we basically take an ls2 uh chevy block that came out like a c5 z06 corvette we sleeved the block the block is actually built to handle 1500 horsepower at the rear wheels so this car 1200 horsepower is about 1050 at the wheels it's very under stress of that power level uh steel lines they're steel liners in the so it's very very strong so what that what would normally have aluminum um aluminum no i believe i believe it's it's got just a not quite quite as so basically and we can make it bigger cubic inch but 6.2 liter the engine revs out to 7200 rpm but you'll see when we drive it it's very the street manners the drivability it's probably not too much different than your zero one corvette right now can we open the hood just absolutely let's take a look absolutely yeah pop open the hatch here let me get the other side real quick hang on a sec okay okay as you can see uh nicely done nice attention to detail here uh i like an engine compartment you can open up and look at the whole thing you know so few cars you can do that these days but uh the runners here big turbos what turbos are there those are a precision ball bearing turbo they're a 67 millimeter turbo and they're capable of making about a thousand horsepower each so again under stressed and where are your pop-off valves the the wastegates are here right so that helps regulate the boost right and the blow-off valves when you let off the throttle that reduces the pressure going into the motor and um are these uh water cooled yeah they're watercolor they're water cooled and all cooled and then we've got the twin naked ducks on the exterior that bring the cool air into the turbos and uh the motor when you drive the car you'll not only hear the exhaust but you'll hear the growl of the motor through the naka ducts which is kind of neat very nice it's a very basic car i mean it's got the big wide michelins it's got so much weight over the back of the car between the engine the transmission it just naturally has a good downforce what is your uh ratio front to back with both of us in the car it'll be 58 rear 42 front okay wow and um wheelies well we'll see yeah yeah very nice very nice thank you to me that was always the sexiest when i was a kid in 1966 and they opened the back of that ford gt at le mans you saw that bag of snakes bundle of snakes bag snakes whatever they call it yeah yeah that was pretty cool and this is sort of reminiscent of that you just get an overview of the whole car there's your transmission right there of course everything's right here alternator you get everything fairly easily you can work on it i mean not that your oil dry sump right here right and this is uh this is obviously your um overflow for the we didn't want to do a fancy carbon cover we wanted our clients and enthusiasts to be able to see you know the serious part of the car the part that does the business very nicely done here let's shut this down just clicks in that's it there you go that's it and is this a wing adjustable from the car it is the wing goes up and down for our top speed run the wing will go down at what speed does this really become an effective thing the wings do anything on the road at all absolutely if you want to go drive mulholland or your windy roads the arrow work on this particular car starts working about 40 miles an hour no that's that low yeah yeah i mean a real big difference probably 80 up 80 and up yeah it's really good so and what kind of downforce you're getting on this uh the card 150 miles an hour puts down about 800 pounds of downforce with the wing up now when we go make a vmax run put the wing down and that'll come down substantially okay and that's strictly that's not an air brake as well that's correct right we looked at doing that but yeah the hydraulic requirements for an air brake were okay add a lot more weight to the car we didn't want to do that but it's tricky to park with the wider rear like that well you know you have a car like this you know you come in with a wide berth and uh that's right take up a special parking spot gas tank you're looking at that it's a 19 gallon tile that's pretty good size 19 so nice nice detail nice carbon fiber inside as well very cool well as i said we're going to take this out in just a minute now if you want more details you can go back and watch the other video that we did on the venom just just you know type in venom and search in the search engine there and you'll see that one but we didn't get to drive that one because it wasn't legal because i thought no way is it going to be legal well it's a legal car and that makes it very exciting let's go for a ride it feels like a little bigger version of my aerial atom but with a lot more horsepower makes great noises inside here and you know there's plenty of room inside it's it's snug but it's certainly not tight i mean i'm six feet tall i'm pretty wide and i'm comfortable in it i've got headroom nice ratio here between steering wheel you can see everything wheel doesn't block the dash and it's nice to have as much as i like all the double clutch gearboxes it's nice to have a stick you know just control your burnouts and stuff a little bit better try to keep the software download thing to a minimum it's a driver's car yeah you know the nice thing about these uh ls2 or any of these chevy series engines they're pretty bulletproof you know excellent heating and cooling we're sitting in traffic although it's a cool day today we're at 172. this is one of these things that spikes up to 220 then you gotta move it to keep the air moving flow keep the air uh moving through it pretty nice because the brakes off the zr1 are the same brakes that are off the uh the ferrari enzo and the uh the 458 as well tremendous amount of torque even when you just touch the throttle it's very responsive for sure there's no turbo lag in this motor just a slight has been a throttle this thing really leaps but very go-kart like you know so many modern supercars they do take the driving experience away from you there's no power assist in this right so your steering is very direct brakes happen right now it's just fun to have your hands on a nice big shift knob you know the real accomplishment with this car besides being 1200 horsepower is the fact that it's street legal i mean you have a car that is fast it stops and handles faster than any of those cars from the 60s yet you get reasonably good gas mileage and you meet current emission standards so that's uh that's pretty exciting it's nice to see the science and the hot rodding working together because the big question is will it do a burnout now mid-engine cars traditionally don't do burnouts as well because you get traction right away and you've got about 60 of your weight over the rear wheels plus it's not my car so we'll do a little burnout youwelcome to the episode of jay leno's garage we're here once again with the hennessey venom now you might remember a while back we did a road test we didn't do a road test we had john here with the car you saw it on the cover road and track you've seen it on the cover of everything well when he brought it to the garage we couldn't drive it because it wasn't legal and i have to admit after john left i went you know i don't think you're ever going to legalize that thing i mean you can sell it around the world in saudi arabia you're not going to be able to sell it here well never underestimate hennessy this thing is now legal in all states 1200 horsepower let's bring john in john how you doing hey jay john hennessey as you see from last time john has got a new hairstyle more layered uh i'm trying to keep up with you more highlights more things you see because because you're going to sell these kind of cards you're moving into my texas smaller world that's right right absolutely when we do jay leno's haircare products and stuff we'll we'll have you back i appreciate that i need a little help but yeah yeah but uh i have to admit i i did say to my guys he's never going to get that certified i mean it's it's a bit of this a bit of that but you managed to do it and the car is now legal here in the united states and it's is it a million dollars it's a million bucks a million bucks even and that's floor mats and all the other little 1200 horsepower and 100 horsepower commando okay and you're going after the veyron's record is that correct correct correct the purpose of the car wasn't to beat the veyron super sports record but we feel like the car is capable of doing it so why not so it's fun why not absolutely it needs to come back to america take away from those french and german guys that's true that's true and i have to admit i'm i i get a little worried about this high speed run because there's nowhere in america you can really do that you know to me all the fun of a car is really between 40 and 120 and that's really where this goes absolutely i mean if it happens to go 260 miles an hour well that's great too but the idea of doing doing that on a public road please please so but but i hope you break the record and i have no doubt believe me breaking that record is easier than getting one of these certified in the united states that should be easy to do and the 1200 horsepower and what about 2700 pounds 2700 pounds so it's basically one horsepower per kilo i mean you're easily not half the weight of average but pretty close yeah it's about a 1300 pound difference pound difference pretty amazing okay what's different from the last car we saw well the i guess this is the fifth car that we've built today uh all carbon fiber brembo carbon ceramic brakes the cars are very similar in terms of what you see but it's it's details it's refinement in every car that we've built now that we built five cars and have a six car under construction now we're able to just basically take our product and refine it so you'll find when we go drive it that it you can poke around in traffic and it doesn't run hot cold and a proper gearbox absolutely yeah we had we were using the the original lotus shifter before and now we've taken that out we're using the ford gt shifter it's the same ricardo transmission right that comes with the four gt so it'll feel just like your ford gt going down the road and it can take that kind of horsepower absolutely and that's why we went with the ricardo box out of the ford gt we built over 44 gts including one that with twin turbo package with a thousand horsepower that jesse jesse james stuck in the ditch a couple weeks ago yeah yeah so it was very reliable and tires are cheap clutches absolutely exactly absolutely this is a driver's car so there's no traction control no abs this is a car that requires you to drive it now if if a person wanted a uh paddle shift box is it available or not it's something that we're looking at for for future down the road but right now it's a standard six speed always astounded at how few people actually order a manual gearbox i mean ferrari doesn't even make a manual gearbox anymore because like one out of every 20 cars or something right i mean it's astounding to me because to me that's the whole fun of driving yeah i mean my mclaren f1 is 243 but the the real fun is just driving and shifting and using it uh you know executing a a perfect gears is a lot of fun and you don't always do it correctly yeah this does look a little more refined than the last one that you had let's see what we got here and this is a target top it comes off not yet we're working on a spider version we're going to make a few structural reinforcements technically you could take the roof off of this car but we're not suggesting that our customers do that we have a few things that we're going to do differently on the chassis but we will have a spider version of the venom gt coming out as a 2013 uh sometime next year now for the for people who missed the last time we did this because we didn't drive the car just a brief uh overview the engine is what it's a 6.2 liter uh based on a small block chevy twin turbo 1200 horsepower we can adjust between 850 1000 and 1200 horsepower now when you say based on what are we talking about you start with the chevy block correct we basically take an ls2 uh chevy block that came out like a c5 z06 corvette we sleeved the block the block is actually built to handle 1500 horsepower at the rear wheels so this car 1200 horsepower is about 1050 at the wheels it's very under stress of that power level uh steel lines they're steel liners in the so it's very very strong so what that what would normally have aluminum um aluminum no i believe i believe it's it's got just a not quite quite as so basically and we can make it bigger cubic inch but 6.2 liter the engine revs out to 7200 rpm but you'll see when we drive it it's very the street manners the drivability it's probably not too much different than your zero one corvette right now can we open the hood just absolutely let's take a look absolutely yeah pop open the hatch here let me get the other side real quick hang on a sec okay okay as you can see uh nicely done nice attention to detail here uh i like an engine compartment you can open up and look at the whole thing you know so few cars you can do that these days but uh the runners here big turbos what turbos are there those are a precision ball bearing turbo they're a 67 millimeter turbo and they're capable of making about a thousand horsepower each so again under stressed and where are your pop-off valves the the wastegates are here right so that helps regulate the boost right and the blow-off valves when you let off the throttle that reduces the pressure going into the motor and um are these uh water cooled yeah they're watercolor they're water cooled and all cooled and then we've got the twin naked ducks on the exterior that bring the cool air into the turbos and uh the motor when you drive the car you'll not only hear the exhaust but you'll hear the growl of the motor through the naka ducts which is kind of neat very nice it's a very basic car i mean it's got the big wide michelins it's got so much weight over the back of the car between the engine the transmission it just naturally has a good downforce what is your uh ratio front to back with both of us in the car it'll be 58 rear 42 front okay wow and um wheelies well we'll see yeah yeah very nice very nice thank you to me that was always the sexiest when i was a kid in 1966 and they opened the back of that ford gt at le mans you saw that bag of snakes bundle of snakes bag snakes whatever they call it yeah yeah that was pretty cool and this is sort of reminiscent of that you just get an overview of the whole car there's your transmission right there of course everything's right here alternator you get everything fairly easily you can work on it i mean not that your oil dry sump right here right and this is uh this is obviously your um overflow for the we didn't want to do a fancy carbon cover we wanted our clients and enthusiasts to be able to see you know the serious part of the car the part that does the business very nicely done here let's shut this down just clicks in that's it there you go that's it and is this a wing adjustable from the car it is the wing goes up and down for our top speed run the wing will go down at what speed does this really become an effective thing the wings do anything on the road at all absolutely if you want to go drive mulholland or your windy roads the arrow work on this particular car starts working about 40 miles an hour no that's that low yeah yeah i mean a real big difference probably 80 up 80 and up yeah it's really good so and what kind of downforce you're getting on this uh the card 150 miles an hour puts down about 800 pounds of downforce with the wing up now when we go make a vmax run put the wing down and that'll come down substantially okay and that's strictly that's not an air brake as well that's correct right we looked at doing that but yeah the hydraulic requirements for an air brake were okay add a lot more weight to the car we didn't want to do that but it's tricky to park with the wider rear like that well you know you have a car like this you know you come in with a wide berth and uh that's right take up a special parking spot gas tank you're looking at that it's a 19 gallon tile that's pretty good size 19 so nice nice detail nice carbon fiber inside as well very cool well as i said we're going to take this out in just a minute now if you want more details you can go back and watch the other video that we did on the venom just just you know type in venom and search in the search engine there and you'll see that one but we didn't get to drive that one because it wasn't legal because i thought no way is it going to be legal well it's a legal car and that makes it very exciting let's go for a ride it feels like a little bigger version of my aerial atom but with a lot more horsepower makes great noises inside here and you know there's plenty of room inside it's it's snug but it's certainly not tight i mean i'm six feet tall i'm pretty wide and i'm comfortable in it i've got headroom nice ratio here between steering wheel you can see everything wheel doesn't block the dash and it's nice to have as much as i like all the double clutch gearboxes it's nice to have a stick you know just control your burnouts and stuff a little bit better try to keep the software download thing to a minimum it's a driver's car yeah you know the nice thing about these uh ls2 or any of these chevy series engines they're pretty bulletproof you know excellent heating and cooling we're sitting in traffic although it's a cool day today we're at 172. this is one of these things that spikes up to 220 then you gotta move it to keep the air moving flow keep the air uh moving through it pretty nice because the brakes off the zr1 are the same brakes that are off the uh the ferrari enzo and the uh the 458 as well tremendous amount of torque even when you just touch the throttle it's very responsive for sure there's no turbo lag in this motor just a slight has been a throttle this thing really leaps but very go-kart like you know so many modern supercars they do take the driving experience away from you there's no power assist in this right so your steering is very direct brakes happen right now it's just fun to have your hands on a nice big shift knob you know the real accomplishment with this car besides being 1200 horsepower is the fact that it's street legal i mean you have a car that is fast it stops and handles faster than any of those cars from the 60s yet you get reasonably good gas mileage and you meet current emission standards so that's uh that's pretty exciting it's nice to see the science and the hot rodding working together because the big question is will it do a burnout now mid-engine cars traditionally don't do burnouts as well because you get traction right away and you've got about 60 of your weight over the rear wheels plus it's not my car so we'll do a little burnout you\n"