So the 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 has formally debuted (at least from the press release. And since the whole darned automotive industry is commercial, it’s all about one car trumping the other to be the preferred brand in a class.

Dodge Viper tuner Hennessey decided to tune the all-new 2008 Dodge Viper SRT10 (thus, redubbed as the Hennessey Venom 650R) in order to bring the total horses in the car to 678, 78 more than what is already in the car so that it would be better looking on paper compared to the 620 horses of the ZR1.

While the performance figures for the ZR1 are still to be expected, the Venom 650R is said to achieve naught-to-sixty in just 3.3 seconds and a top speed of 211 mph. That is amazingly quick. Though it’s crazy how the Viper still needs someone to really tweak it out in order to bring the real beast from within.

In a previous post, we featured this monster known as the Hennessey Venom GT - a super tricked out Viper that aims to unseat the Veyron as the king of supercars. What we have here today is a sketch that features its backside, giving us an idea of how this supercar would look like.

It’s turning to be quite a looker too as it’s penned by famous British designer Steve Everitt. Hey, the design should do justice to what the car claims - 1000 horses from a twin-turbo V10. If they pull it off in the engineering side, that’s a tall order to match design-wise.

So the tweaked out Viper shocked us by beating the Veyron in the supercar shoot out in that issue of Road & Track. And here we have Hennessey revealing the next Venom GT concept.

Quite honestly, the darned thing looks like a Lotus Elise on steroids. And the comparison’s not just on the looks. It also takes the lightweightedness concept just a bit further. Weighting less than 1,225 kg, the Venom packs a whole lot of horses with a 1,000 hp twin-turbo V10 mated to a 6-speed transmission (or an optional sequential gearbox). Power is sent directly to the rear wheels. This is scary since doing the (basic) math, it show that each 1.225 kg of weight is being pulled by one horse.

These stats translate to performance of naught to sixty in just under 2.5 seconds. No wonder it ripped the Veyron in that shootout. Now I’ve held the Veyron as the triumph of engineering as far as making production and street legal cars go that quick. But this one, if it can really do all the things they say it can, is scary. No props on the Elise looks though.

While production isn’t still a go. There is much interest in getting this monster out of the line on to the street.

Holy crap, is this real? I must get hold of the Road & Track Magazine next month then.

Road & Track tried to answer which supercar will perform best in the standing mile with, technically, a super car drag race, first to hit the 0-200mph. Out came the six supercars - the Lamborghini Murciélago, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, the Ruf Rt 12, the Lingenfelter Corvette, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, Hennessey Venom 1000 Twin Turbo Viper.

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