Hennessey Venom GT Concept 1200 BHP at Geneva

Even if many automakers out there have already announced world or European premieres of their models at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September, Hennessey Performance Engineering is already planning its booth for the 2010 Geneva Auto Show that will witness the first appearance of the Venom GT Concept producing - hold your breath, please! - 1200 bhp.

This incredible amount of power will come from a Hennessey specially-tuned version of the Corvette ZR1's LS9 engine, which will be both supercharged and twin-turbocharged, as the company explains in a release. The car is expected to jump from a standstill to sixty in 2.4 seconds and reach a maximum speed of 272 mph (440 km/h). Other figures include a 0-100 mph acceleration in 5.3 seconds, 0-150 mph in 8.9 seconds, and 0-200 mph in 14.3 seconds.

"It goes without saying that I am not the first Texan to come up with the idea of marrying a powerful American V8 with a light-weight British chassis," says company founder, John Hennessey, referring to legendary tuner Carroll Shelby. "However, I am confident that automotive fans around the world will find our forthcoming Venom GT to be every bit as earth-shattering as the 289 AC Cobra was back in the early 1960's".

Unfortunately for those of you who already started dreaming about owning such a car, it doesn't come cheap. The base price is $600,000 and is split as it follows: a $200,000 payment is due to confirm an order and $200,000 is required after 4 months. The final payment is due upon completion, with production taking around 9 months.