What’s the fastest you’ve ever gone with the top down? Whatever that is, Texas-born and Texas-proud Hennessey Performance just topped that by a long shot. For the tuner company’s 25th anniversary, they just set a new world record for fastest convertible sports car by running 265.6 mph at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California.
Hennessey said that run was confirmed by speed testing firm Racelogic, and it beat the previous convertible speed record set by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport Vitesse by more than 11 mph. (As if the Volkswagen Group didn’t have enough problems lately, right?)
The latest Venom GT is powered by a 7.0-liter V8 pumping out 1,451 Americatacular horsepower, and 1,287 freedom-riffic lb-ft of torque.
The last time Hennessey did a speed run of this magnitude, it was the 270.49 mph record run with the roofed version of the Venom GT at the Kennedy Space Center. But “world’s fastest convertible” is cooler than “world’s fastest car” any day of the week.
Your move, Bugatti. And Koenigsegg. And anybody else?