Hennesy Venom vs Lotus Exige

[the ronin]

So now I'm the asshole for pointing out the unproven claims from a known ripoff..

And the thread should be closed because you guys feel it's ok to insult me for stating facts.... I could easily come back with a proper response but it would bring me down to your level....

Enjoy your fantasies ladies..

It's funny how the thread title reads... Hennesy Venom vs Lotus Exige ..., not how to kiss arse and make internet heros your friends.

Edited by the ronin on Thursday 11th August 15:27

[Scrambled]

the ronin said:

So now I'm the asshole for pointing out the unproven claims from a known ripoff..

And the thread should be closed because you guys feel it's ok to insult me for stating facts.... I could easily come back with a proper response but it would bring me down to your level....

Enjoy your fantasies ladies..

It's funny how the thread title reads... Hennesy Venom vs Lotus Exige ..., not how to kiss arse and make internet heros your friends.

Edited by the ronin on Thursday 11th August 15:27

No Frank, you're not an asshole for pointing out unproven claims. You're an asshole for not taking the opportunity to see the car in the flesh whilst divorcing your prejudices however well justified on completely different matters.

What makes you the king among kings of assholes is that you do not seem to understand we do not want you to make friends with him, worship his car or forgive any alleged passed misdemeanours.

We just want a first hand experienced critique of the venom as oppose to your slagging the car off without evidence and 'no evidence' does not prove you right. You may be 100% right, but you could have had the proof or you could have come back here and said, "you know what chaps, not as good as he said, pretty good car but not worth $50 let alone $1,000,000"

Now we'll never know.

[cheddar]

Has anyone watched one of ronins "Look at me" 'canyoning' video's?

I have and far from thinking 'Wow that's fast' I have a strong suspicion that a bog standard Exige would absolutely murder his unbalanced overpowered frank-enstein car across any stretch of twisty blacktop Frank cares to mention.

[Exige77]

cheddar said:

Has anyone watched one of ronins "Look at me" 'canyoning' video's?

I have and far from thinking 'Wow that's fast' I have a strong suspicion that a bog standard Exige would absolutely murder his unbalanced overpowered frank-enstein car across any stretch of twisty blacktop Frank cares to mention.

Some very experienced Brits, like Randy from Hoffmans, have been and tried Franks car and it does exactly whar it says on the tin.

Ex77

[the ronin]

cheddar said:

Has anyone watched one of ronins "Look at me" 'canyoning' video's?

I have and far from thinking 'Wow that's fast' I have a strong suspicion that a bog standard Exige would absolutely murder his unbalanced overpowered frank-enstein car across any stretch of twisty blacktop Frank cares to mention.

Un balanced..

by hofmanns » Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:31 pm

I’ve been out in Vegas for the last week taking in the West Coast Lotus Meet, the SEMA show, the strip and also got the chance to drive Frank Profera’s (AKA Ronin) monster car, which has been the highlight of the trip.

Frank seems to think that, for some reason, there are people who doubt that his car works with all it’s compound charger trickery so I said I would give a little insight into my time behind the wheel.

Like him or loathe him, Frank has a great ability to bring a challenging project to fruition and his car really is an amazing bit of kit in the flesh. The detail and finish of the car is very high and, although the looks are bound to divide opinion, the quality of the work that has gone into the car is exemplary. Being in the lucky position of driving many fast cars it’s rare that I get excited about the prospect of driving another but this one really did set my pulse racing.

Frank took to the wheel first and quickly showed me how the car could light up the tyres at 70mph but I felt perfectly at ease and sat back and enjoyed the warp speed and sound track. If you like forced induction cars then you will love the scream of a supercharger, the whoosh of a turbocharger and this car has both. It sounds unreal and not in a chavvy way, more of a sci-fi meets terminator meets star ship enterprise way. Basically it sounds REALLY cool.

It didn’t take long for Frank to kindly entrust me with the keys so I jumped in the drivers seat and pulled away and instantly felt at home. There isn’t really anything to fear with the car at normal speeds, the clutch being reasonably light, the gearchange positive and slick and the engine tractable. You can felt the extra inertia of the SC and turbo on the downshifts but it doesn’t take too long to account for that in your driving and the cars generally feels very OEM. Setup wise the car felt terrific, but that’s exactly what I had expected seeing as Frank had fitted a set of my dampers and taken all my advice on geo! Until I got comfortable I was fairly gently with the throttle and at low engine speeds the performance feels very similar to a top spec SC Honda with a linear power delivery. What really does grab your attention is the way that, once you have settled into the car, it will pull all the way to the red line, in every gear, just building and building speed in a way that’s quite unreal. On the big open American roads you don’t get the same perspective of speed that you do in the UK but on glancing down at the speedo after only a few moments of full throttle you will see the needle threatening to jump off the end of the dial. If the car were mine I would travel everywhere at 160+mph as it’s just so easy to reach silly speeds. You can stick it in 5th at 70mph and nail it, there will be a whine as the SC starts turning, followed in very short order by a whoosh as the turbo spools and the car will set off and start building speed. As the revs climb the engine pulls harder and harder and harder until the point where you remember it’s Frank’s toy and not yours and that you really should slow down. At speed the car is stable and comfortable, and I’m sure it would feel that way all the way up to whatever silly speed it would reach which has to be 180+. Luckily for me I got to spend a decent amount of time behind the wheel, taking in some sight seeing a normal speeds and some twisty bits at silly speeds and at all times the car was fantastic. On the road there is nothing to touch it and what impresses most is the breadth of its power delivery, with massive urge from 2000rpm through to 8500rpm and this makes complete sense of the tall gearing.

So, the car gets a resounding thumbs up… I was pained to give back the keys! My thanks go out to Frank for entrusting me with his fantastic toy. I know Frank can be abrupt on the forums but he is a generous and warm person in real life, very entertaining company and very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about cars.



The car has an additional 115 whp. now


Please come show me how it's done cheese boy....

Edited by the ronin on Friday 12th August 14:49

[the ronin]

Now until a "real Lotus racer" posts a little first hand driving experience of the Hennessey Lotus I'll stick with my opinion..
Still no revite to the skunkworks..

[Scrambled]

the ronin said:

Now until a "real Lotus racer" posts a little first hand driving experience of the Hennessey Lotus I'll stick with my opinion..
Still no revite to the skunkworks..

Your car is great Frank; that is clear from the videos and I would imagine only a small percentage of its ability comes across by them. Only be driving it can provide the insight above.

I am prepared to be open minded as to whether the Venom is any good. I suspect you may be right but I'll wait till the evidence is in to finalise my opinion.

As for your last comment, you will not get an invite based on the note you sent Hennesey _ that's more about your attitude [as I have already mentioned] than it is about Hennesey not wanting you to visit. If the Venom is crap then yes, Hennesey deserves all the metaphorical crap that will be thrown at him.

Have you had yours on the track? How does it benchmark on lap times with other more off the shelf track biased metal?

[the ronin]

When it was only 290 whp it set the Lap Record for any Lotus at Willow Springs Raceway on worn A048 street tires 3yrs ago...... It took 3yrs for a fully race preped WCR Exige with the same power to match the time on qualifing slicks...

I have not driven my rocket pig on track in its current configuration but I can tell you without doubt the difference is night and day.

Different suspension, aero, wheels slicks and massive power. 290 whp vs 615+ whp..I say plus because the 615 whp was at 28 psi. on the dyno, I run 33 psi. on the street...

[Minismiles]

Hey Ronin,

Sorry for dragging this thread back up and driftin away from it slightly. But if you were able to make your car for others as a living what sort of price would you charge??

I know this has nothing to do with the Hennesy argument, i'm just curious as to what it would take to get what you have??

That is a wonderful write up from Randy, and having met him i would trust his opinion a lot.

For the point of the thread, have you thought of just popping over to see the Hennesy guys, just drop in, and see what they have going on??

[the ronin]

Minismiles said:

Hey Ronin,

Sorry for dragging this thread back up and driftin away from it slightly. But if you were able to make your car for others as a living what sort of price would you charge??

I know this has nothing to do with the Hennesy argument, i'm just curious as to what it would take to get what you have??

That is a wonderful write up from Randy, and having met him i would trust his opinion a lot.

For the point of the thread, have you thought of just popping over to see the Hennesy guys, just drop in, and see what they have going on??

I think you could put together a car like mine for under $120k. That is custom body and full tilt engine gearbox setup... I know the peeps that could put it together since I've done all the R$D... Start out with a used car and it would be much less..
Remember I've been screwin with this as soon as I got it home new in 05.

Check out www.Lotussport.org if you want to know the nuts and bolts of my car..
.
As for poppin down to Hennessey's it would be a waste of time for me in LA traffic to see a Lotus that will never be driven in anger in the twisties....
The fact remains he pussied out because he knows his car won't live up to all the HYPE... and I seriously doubt it could even stay in its own lane in the canyons..... I have my rocket pig dialed in for the real world as far as the suspension goes and I know I've got the power dialed in.... 615 real WHP not BS.

It would be a great David vs Goliath match and I have guys wanting to video it but Goliath seems to be a unick..

[Oilchange]

eunuch?

[HCMH]

http://www.minus273.biz/minus273/2011/08/29/2011-h...

Some images....not my cup of tea but wouldn't say no

[Nightmare]

Scrambled said:

No Frank, you're not an asshole for pointing out unproven claims. You're an asshole for not taking the opportunity to see the car in the flesh whilst divorcing your prejudices however well justified on completely different matters.

What makes you the king among kings of assholes is that you do not seem to understand we do not want you to make friends with him, worship his car or forgive any alleged passed misdemeanours.

We just want a first hand experienced critique of the venom as oppose to your slagging the car off without evidence and 'no evidence' does not prove you right. You may be 100% right, but you could have had the proof or you could have come back here and said, "you know what chaps, not as good as he said, pretty good car but not worth $50 let alone $1,000,000"

Now we'll never know.

possibly my favourite ever pistonheads post!

Frank.....read the above again and again. The world is about a f**k lot more than fast/nearly fast or not fast cars. You need to seriously get over your attitude issues here. Why do you think you're a one-man crusade against someone or something I have no idea.

I would also have liked someone who knows car engineering and set-up to go and sit in, poke about, passenger or possibly drive the Venom. I wouldn't be remotely interested in YOUR opinion on it any more, however as you have proved s total lack of objectivity and the ability to say a good word about anything other than your own creation.

Shame.

[GTRene]

HCMH said:

http://www.minus273.biz/minus273/2011/08/29/2011-h...

Some images....not my cup of tea but wouldn't say no

mmmm jummie
also saw such and then even better from a red Hennesy Venom a while ago.

anyway here 2 other links>>

http://www.gtspirit.com/2011/07/23/photo-of-the-da...





and driving http://www.venomgt.com/gallery/chassis-number-03/

and studio>>

http://www.venomgt.com/gallery/chassis-number-03-s...

[Beachbum]

Is this still going on !!!!!

Surely people have better things to do with their time. Watching pain dry springs to mind

[the ronin]

Nightmare said:

Scrambled said:

No Frank, you're not an asshole for pointing out unproven claims. You're an asshole for not taking the opportunity to see the car in the flesh whilst divorcing your prejudices however well justified on completely different matters.

What makes you the king among kings of assholes is that you do not seem to understand we do not want you to make friends with him, worship his car or forgive any alleged passed misdemeanours.

We just want a first hand experienced critique of the venom as oppose to your slagging the car off without evidence and 'no evidence' does not prove you right. You may be 100% right, but you could have had the proof or you could have come back here and said, "you know what chaps, not as good as he said, pretty good car but not worth $50 let alone $1,000,000"

Now we'll never know.

possibly my favourite ever pistonheads post!

Frank.....read the above again and again. The world is about a f**k lot more than fast/nearly fast or not fast cars. You need to seriously get over your attitude issues here. Why do you think you're a one-man crusade against someone or something I have no idea.

I would also have liked someone who knows car engineering and set-up to go and sit in, poke about, passenger or possibly drive the Venom. I wouldn't be remotely interested in YOUR opinion on it any more, however as you have proved s total lack of objectivity and the ability to say a good word about anything other than your own creation.

Shame.

I never said anything about my creation other than facts about it's power and weight.... I couldn't give a st if someone likes my opinion since I drive with neon yellow wheels on a Ferrari grey 707 bhp Lotus, I know I'm out there and I don't know anything about putting together a Lotus that fuquin works...

[Scrambled]

Beachbum said:

Is this still going on !!!!!

Surely people have better things to do with their time. Watching pain dry springs to mind

Feel free to go and watch some paint drying then but take a dictionary with you.

If you're not interested don't read the thread.

Frank _ why do you think Hennesey reckons it's a million pound car?

[Beachbum]

Scrambled said:

Feel free to go and watch some paint drying then but take a dictionary with you.

If you're not interested don't read the thread.

Frank _ why do you think Hennesey reckons it's a million pound car?

OK, so my typing skills leave a lot to be desired, but hey, you understood what I was trying to say.
Interested in a slanging match between two opposing sides who feel they need to throw insults at each other. No
Interested in the differences in these 2 cars, what they are and are not capable of, absolutely.

[the ronin]

Beachbum you can always keep it to yourself and move on....

I have no idea where they pulled the $1,000,000.00 value from since there is not that much real R$D involved in their kit car Lotus.

I guess if it cost more the fools with that kind of money will step up thinking the price gives it the exclusivity and performance [hype] a $1,000,000.00 supercar comands..

I would gladly sell my car for $150K so if you know anyone in the market let me know....

[pthelazyjourno]

Is yours carbon fibre? Out of curiosity.