Thursday 29th March 2012

Twin-turbo Ford GT hits 257.7mph

Mad-looking Hennessey car breaks standing mile record in Texas. Next stop: 260mph+

---

A standard-spec Ford GT isn't exactly slow, but a group of speed-crazed Texans have managed to squeeze nearly 260mph out of one - in the space of one mile.

Over the weekend, at the Texas Mile speed event, this heavily modified GT driven by Sean Kennedy hit 257.7mph over a standing mile, breaking the event's existing record in the process.

The car is engineered by Kevin Kesterson from Hennessey Performance Engineering - the same people behind the rather mental Venom GT.

Underneath the eye-catching body wrap, the GT's standard engine has been replaced with a 5.4-litre Accufab Racing engine sporting a huge pair of turbochargers and running on competition fuel.

"I knew when I saw 204mph come up on the scoreboard at the half mile, that it was on," said Kesterson. "I just couldn't wait to see what it was going to run out the back."

The next Texas Mile event is in October, where the team believe they can have a crack at the 260mph barrier. In the meantime, take a look at the video, both onboard and from the outside.

 

[don logan]

Somehow this is so much more exciting to me than http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/news/default.asp?stor...

[UnluckyTimmeh]

didn't even get into 6th?

[rb5er]

Cars just dont get much more amazing than that.

I dont understand why brake representatives have been voting as the rating is rather low. It gets a full 10 from me.

[purpleliability]

It must also have a different gearbox as by my reckoning he does the 257mph in 5th gear? Wow!

These are 6 speeds as standard.

[GingerWizard]

worlds worst start????

[Mark Wibble]

GingerWizard said:

worlds worst start????

You're not wrong! Standing mile... you'd think he'd have practiced that a bit more! Getting that right alone would get him over 260...

[kotafey]

In the second video, just before he starts - is that an electric window? I would have thought they'd strip all excess luxuries like that.

[GT2CS]

gets to 257.7mph in about 24secs. not bad!
Slow start due to putting down all that HP. 1st gear boost must be quite low.

[Dave Hedgehog]

stunning car, would do for my daily commute

i would imagine traction could be a problem in any gear lol

[jamie g]

The start would make very little difference to the max speed, but then again a 0.1 mph improvement could be the difference between winning and losing.

[959]

The graphics describe the sound perfectly......... Chain gun on full chat with explosive rounds at 20 feet.

[soad]

Wow, what a beast!!

don logan said:

Somehow this is so much more exciting to me than http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/news/default.asp?stor...

True.

[McSam]

It is an impressive beast, but he really does need to work on his technique getting the thing off the line! I'm amazed they wanna broadcast that one, not the most professional.

[V12 Migaloo]

My mates Nova can do that......

[DaveH23]

so this beats the veyron in top speed in 1 mile.

Didnt the veryron use a 5 mile straight and also come out the top corner at 120mph?

Would be good to see some more statistics for 0-60, 0-100 etc or see it head to head with other cars.

[TEKNOPUG]

Is it street legal? It doesn't look it.

In that case, I would like to nominate Spencer Massey who ran 328mph back in February.

In a quarter of the distance it took that Ford....

[Mr fox]

Hi Chaps,

Can someone please explain one thing to me, which is that Bugatti did make a big deal about tyres having to be especially made to handle such large speed's, and on a Bugatti these things dont come cheap, so how can cars regularily hit 240+ yet dont seem to have tyres that one would have thought didn't work, and at worst started exploding of the rims.

Regards
Mr Fox

[CalibreDan]

The launch will have made next to no difference at all to the top speed. And I'd imagine launching a car with gears that long wouldn't be easy in the slightest - Ever wondered why they push start cars on the salt flats?

[Mattygooner]

DaveH23 said:

so this beats the veyron in top speed in 1 mile.

Didnt the veryron use a 5 mile straight and also come out the top corner at 120mph?

Would be good to see some more statistics for 0-60, 0-100 etc or see it head to head with other cars.

Yeah, but the veyron did it with the cars standard production engine and on pump fuel with all it's body work attached.

I don't understand the big deal with this, everyone trying to out do what the Veyron did 4 or so years ago with an, albeit limited production car.

It's fast in a straight line, anyone can do that, but try doing it when you have rules, cooling, consistency, reliability etc, that is when it becomes a story.

Not only that, my nan could probably achieve the Veyrons times, it's effortless power.

[CalibreDan]

Mr fox said:

Hi Chaps,

Can someone please explain one thing to me, which is that Bugatti did make a big deal about tyres having to be especially made to handle such large speed's, and on a Bugatti these things dont come cheap, so how can cars regularily hit 240+ yet dont seem to have tyres that one would have thought didn't work, and at worst started exploding of the rims.

Regards
Mr Fox

The Veyrons tyres will have been designed to handle high load for a considerable amount of time. You could do short runs of high speed on most rubber, but holding the speed and not having the tyres start eating themselves is a problem.

Just a risk that a lot of these cars take.