When a car company decides to name its hypercar after the most powerful class of tornado in the world, there’s a certain level of expectation that needs to be met. Fortunately, that company is Hennessey and it’s got big plans for its new creation, the Venom F5. We’ve all heard a lot about the Venom F5 and the company’s plan for the car to become the fastest and most powerful production car in the world. But now, John Hennessey and his boys are making it clear for all the world to hear: the Venom F5 is coming to eat the Bugatti Chiron.

Challenging the Chiron is a tall order in it of itself, but if there’s one company that’s proven to be up to the task of taking down the mighty Bugatti, it’s Hennessey. That sentiment doesn’t come with a tinge of hyperbole either because Hennessey has already done it in the past when the Venom F5’s predecessor, the Venom GT, broke the Veyron Super Sport’s production car top speed record when it clocked a top speed of 270.3 mph. Issues with its “production status” prevented the Venom GT from claiming the Veyron Super Sport’s record, but regardless of what the record books say, the supercar did break 270 mph. Now, Hennessey wants the Venom F5 to make the Chiron look like a bow-legged tortoise by comparison with a goal of approaching a top speed of around 300 mph. Say what you will about Hennessey’s ambitions, but it’s hard to dismiss it because the automaker has already proven so many people wrong with the Venom GT. Now that it's the F5's turn, look out, Bugatti.

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The underdog has some punch behind it

This is one underdog story that probably shouldn’t be treated as such, even if it looks that way on paper. The truth of the matter is that Hennessey couldn’t be any more different from Bugatti. One is a small-scale, Texas-based company that specializes in aftermarket tuning of American performance cars. The other is considered the crown jewel company of one of the world’s biggest auto conglomerates. The sheer discrepancy of resources between Hennessey and Bugatti is gulf-sized. No exaggerations there.

But to Hennessey’s credit, none of these perceived disadvantages have prevented it from doing the unthinkable. Nobody thought it could be done, but when the Venom GT beat the Veyron Super Sport’s top speed record, it sent shock waves throughout the industry to the point that the Venom GT’s production status became a point of controversy for some people.

Regardless, Hennessey made its point clear. It’s capable of beating the very best hypercars in the world and it’s set to do it again with the Venom F5, the next evolution of the Venom nameplate that’s setting its sights on being a lot faster than any production car in history, the Bugatti Chiron included. Hennessey hasn’t said what kind of engine the Venom F5 will get, but it did say that it has a goal of producing an output of 1,500 horsepower, a shade more than the 1,479 horses coming out of the Chiron’s quad-turbo, 8.0-liter W-16. Combine that with the notion that the Venom F5 will be much lighter than the Chiron – Hennessey is building the F5 from the ground-up, complete with a new design and chassis – and there is a roadmap for Hennessey towards achieving its goal.

Questions on whether it does so or not will only be answered when the Venom F5 is ready to hit the road. The hypercar is expected to be unveiled later this year so look for it to finally show off its capabilities sometime in early 2018. That should give all of us enough time to brace for what could be the most titanic battle between two hypercars whose origins couldn’t be more different from each other.