The Hennessey Venom GT is easily one of the craziest street-legal cars ever produced. It is based on the underpinnings of the lightweight Lotus Exige, but then beefed up in every conceivable way.

Instead of the Exige’s supercharged four-cylinder motor, the Venom GT has a twin-turbo charged LS9, displacing 6.2-liters and producing a barely believable 1200-hp and 1155 lb-ft of torque. All of that power is sent to the rear wheels through a Ricardo 6-speed gearbox.

Performance, as you’d imagine, is quite extraordinary. This 2,400 lb. machine can rocket from 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds and onto a proposed top speed of 267 mph. More impressively, it can sprint from 0-200 mph 15.9 seconds (a Bugatti Veyron covers that sprint in 24.2 seconds).

The Venom GT is truly an astonishing performance car, and the very first one ever made can be yours. Hennessey Performance has put the car up for sale, and are asking $1.3-million for it. So if you have the means, and have a neighbor who always beats you at the traffic lights with his Veyron, then this is the car for you.

[Source: DuPont Registry]

If you want the performance of a Bugatti Veyron in an all-American package (that’s one tenth the price), look no further than Hennessey Performance Engineering’s HPE1000, a $65,000 upgrade for the Chevrolet Camaro SS.

The stock 6.2L LS3 engine is discarded in favor of a 7.0L LSX variant, and a complete twin-turbocharger system is installed. The LSX is essentially re-built as well, with new pistons, cylinder heads, crankshaft, intake manifold, exhaust and fuel management system. All of these systems, along with your choice of heavy duty manual or automatic gearboxes are necessary to handle the absurd 1000 horsepower the car lays down through the rear wheels. Helping to control the tsunami of power are KW Variant coilovers, Brembo brakes, Pirelli P-Zero tires and an HPE CarbonAero bodykit.

For the $125,000 price tag, Hennessey claims that “…you’ll be able to do burnouts at 100 mph!”. Only two questions remain: where do we sign, and do you accept organs as payment.

[Source: InsideLine]

Initially thought to be a far-fetched fantasy, Hennessey Performance Engineering has announced that it will debut its Venom GT supercar at the Geneva Auto Show next year and AutoGuide has learned some important chassis and powertrain info about the vehicle. In a chat with company founder and CEO John Hennessy at the SEMA Show last week, he informed us that rather than a more obvious twin-turbo Viper V10 powerplant, the Venom GT will be powered by a version of the supercharged Chevrolet LS9 motor – the same one found under the hood of the Corvette ZR1. This also happens to be the very same engine used in Hennessey’s new HPE700 Camaro where it makes 725-hp.

As for the chassis, as the photos suggest, the Venom is very much a Lotus underneath. The car will be based on a modified Lotus Exige S platform. Hennessey says that his company has always worked with existing platforms and so they chose to do the same with the Venom GT. This project will be far more involved than “just” building a high-performance engine, however, Hennessey says that by using an existing chassis with many existing parts, licensing the vehicle will be much easier and without a donor platform the project would take much longer.

Hennessey also told us that this “all-American” supercar won’t be built in the U.S. Instead, Hennessey has chosen to create the vehicle in the U.K., near Lotus and surrounded by the “cottage-industry” of specialized high-performance shops that exist there as a part of the U.K.’s Formula 1 hub.

In the past, Hennessey has said the Venom GT would make as much as 1,200-hp, weigh just 2,400 lbs, have a 0-60 mph time of 2.4 seconds and a top speed of 272 mph!

We’ll have to wait for the Geneva Auto Show in March to find out more.

GALLERY: Hennessey Venom GT

One of just two vehicles worthy to flank the Mobil 1 booth at the 2009 SEMA Show is the Hennessey HPE700 LS9 Camaro. As the name suggests, under the hood there’s a supercharged LS9 motor lifted from a Corvete ZR1. The easy-to-remember HPE700 name isn’t entirely accurate, however, as the engine has been tuned somewhat to deliver closer to 725-hp. As for torque, it’s rated at 741 ft-lbs from just 3200 rpm.

Hennessey claims the ZR1-powered Camaro will scoot to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and run the quarter mile in 11.3 seconds at 126 mph.

Talking with John Hennessey he told us that the HPE700 is very much the theoretical love child of a Camaro and a Corvette ZR1, with that theme continuing to more places than just under the hood. The car also gets lots of carbon fiber parts, like a carbon rear lip spoiler, carbon side skirts and a carbon fiber front splitter. There’s even a ZR1-inspired hood with a glass section to view the powerful LS9.

GALLERY: Hennessey HPE700 Camaro

How’s this for a school assignment: take a 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe, construct a twin-turbocharger system to make it pump out 500hp and present your work at SEMA.

That’s the task facing students at John Hennessey’s Tuner School.

Best known for his work with Dodge Vipers, Hennessey has assigned students at the State of Texas-accredited academy with the task of tuning the 3.8L V6 Genesis Coupe.

Students from the previous class got their hands on the Coupe first. Starting with a baseline 253hp on the dyno, the students constructed cold air induction and cat-back exhaust systems and mixed it a bit of nitrous. The end result, as you can see in the following video, was a jump to 380hp at the rear wheel.

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With that class graduating, the current cohort has been asked to push the Genesis Coupe even further. The plan is to construct a twin-turbocharger system with a pair of GT30R turbos with the goal of topping 500hp.

The project Coupe will also be fitted with new wheels, gauges and aftermarket seats to make it presentable at the 2009 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, starting November 3rd.

[Source: Edmunds]

We had all but relegated Hennessey’s Venom GT supercar to the concept car history books but it appears as though the 1,200hp monster is anything but a piece of fiction. Hennessey Performance Engineering, known best for tuning Dodge Vipers, has announced that it will build the car and unveil it at the Geneva Auto Show this winter.

Aiming to take on vehicles like the Bugatti Veyron and Koenigsegg CCX, the Venom GT will be powered by a V8 engine (likely twin-turbocharged) and capable of as much as 1,200hp. With a cub weight of just 2,400 lbs, Hennessey expects a 0-60 mph time of just 2.4 seconds and a top speed of 272 mph!

GALLERY: Hennessey Venom GT Concept

Full specifications after the jump:

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