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SSC Ultimate Aero vs Hennessey Venom GT; comparison
Topic Started: May 2 2012, 06:33 PM (197 Views)
Buddha
Administrator
In honor of the new May 2012 DLC, which features the Hennessey Venom GT, I decided to pit it to the closest thing it has to a rival: the SSC Ultimate Aero. On paper both are fairly even, featuring overpowered V8 engines producing over 1,200 horsepower and 1,100+ pound-feet of torque. Both also feature ridiculous top speed claims from their respective manufacturers. Both are mid-engined rear drive hyper cars. The only question that remains is: Which is the best? Well the best in Forza 4 at least.

For a true top speed test, there’s only 1 track made for this. First up it’s the Benchmark High Speed Ring. For this event, the highest top speed wins (though I’ll also be recording the lap times just for shits and giggles). Each car is getting 2 laps to get up to speed, with the first lap being from zero miles per hour. First up is the Ultimate Aero, with its 1287 horsepower engine and previous top speed recording holding build (the Veyron SS took back the record for those of you living under a rock). The SSC pulled off a whopping 257mph run on lap 1. However, I have a feeling it could’ve gone even faster. From a launch, it managed to smoke the tires all the way into 5th gear at well over 130mph (if you’re wondering I short shifted in an effort to regain traction). Even worse, at speeds of 200+ mph, the Aero understeers like hell. Granted this is to be somewhat expected at that speed, but it certainly didn’t help its cause. Next up is the Venom GT, from a tuning shop turned apparent auto manufacturer named Hennessey. This little Lotus-based vehicle is a far cry away from the awesome Dodge Vipers of the companies past. So far, at least from what I’ve seen, the Venom GT is a bunch of big talk with no proven numbers to actually back it up. Let’s see if it can beat its rival (who also lacks in proof for the most part save for top speed). I’ll admit, from the launch, I knew who had won this. Though I’ll admit, looking at how fast I was going through the gears and the RPMs, I wasn’t sure the Venom had enough gear to actually pull it off. But it did. It ran a stupidly fast 261mph on lap 1. While it certainly could’ve gone faster, I didn’t really care about the lap times and for the most part kept the hammer down the entire time and let the car do as it wanted. That said the Venom GT was far easier to drive than the SSC. It had none of the ridiculous understeer at speed (mild amounts at best), it actually didn’t spend about 10 seconds flailing back and forth from a hard launch, and it even had the nerve to be more stable than the SSC at speed. Talk about an ass kicking. Round 1: Venom GT

Ok, I’ll admit it. I hate the Lotus Elise/Exige and anything associated with it. The Venom GT gets some of the hate for that and a good portion of it because everyone seems to be obsessed with its excessive speed and all the shit that appears when a new million dollar hypercar pops up. Plus the Elise is a damn British car. This competition is about American hypercars. So the SSC almost has to win for national pride or something of the sort. Plus the SSC looks better. Though, it’s still not winning any beauty contests in my book. Anyway, enough of my rambling for now.

For round 2, I was determined to find an event the SSC should win with no problem. I mean, it has to be better at something. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of any. So I decided to take these overpowered, rather ugly, expensive vehicles to Indy. Surely they actually turn better than a stock car. So for these purposes the Indy GP track will be used. Same deal as before: 2 laps, only for this the fastest time wins instead of speed. Up first this time was the Venom GT. As I stated before, I have a serious dislike of the Exige. Driving the Venom makes me remember exactly why, though as with the Lotus, they both have potential if you can drive them properly. The Venom GT is way too fast for this track. The power alone ruined numerous corners for me. Giving it a reasonable amount of gas (say the amount you’d give a Viper or some other slow vehicle) resulted in wheel spin. To make matters worse, the wheel spin resulted in all types of oversteer. Lift throttle, power on, you name it this car has it. The damn power is simply too much for this to be reasonably driven around (well maybe with TCS on it’d be fine). Combine that with twitchy handling and you have a car that’s a total nightmare on a track. I ended up just driving around the track in third gear giving it about 50% throttle at most except on the straights. Doing this got me a wonderfully amazing time of 1:33.880, dirty of course. The SSC was just as much of a nightmare as the Hennessey. Unlike the Venom, the SSC felt rather heavy (which is strange as the cars are less than 100 pounds apart in weight). On the straights, the SSC was noticeably slower than the Venom, which aided braking. That said it still brakes rather poorly. Just to screw up my lap times even more, the SSC decides to get even more wheel spin at 120+ than it had at 30mph. At numerous points around the track, I actually had to come off the gas and to keep control of the car. That said the SSC proved to be the more consistent car. Unfortunately, it lost with a whopping dirty 1:40.466. Round 2: Venom GT

At this point, the Ultimate Aero has proven to be inferior to the Venom GT. At this point, I’m left with one option to redeem the Shelby, a way that allows it to avoid stopping or turning. There’s only one way to do this: a totally ridiculous way that removes any chance the Venom GT can win.

For this, I reversed the performance index of the cars. The Venom GT has a PI of 782, so it will be substituted by the car closest to the reverse of its PI without going over (in the event there isn’t a car with such a PI). This means the car must have a maximum PI of 287. Same goes for the SSC, with its stock PI of 756; it will be replaced by a car of 657 or less. The two cars will then be subjected to a drag race to see which is superior. Standing in for the Venom will be the 1972 Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 (PI D285). The SSC will be represented by the 2010 Spada Vetture Sport Codatronca TS (PI S654). The track will be half mile at Sedona and each car will be given one run. The Mercedes ran an impressive 24.291 half mile, and the Spada did an even more impressive 17.868. Seeing as how this about the SSC and Venom GT, I’m not going to elaborate on my driving experiences for this round. As such, the SSC wins this. Round 3: Ultimate Aero

So at the end of this, it’s Venom GT 2, SSC 1. Well congratulations to Hennessey, they win this little comparison. Overall though, neither would win if my personal opinion of them was thrown into play. In fact, I’d replace them both with a Koenigsegg Agera given the chance. Both of these are simply too hard to drive and way too fast to be practical on any track that’s not shaped like an oval. That said, I had fun doing this. Thankfully it was less painful than driving the Shelby Cobra in Forza 2. Winner: Hennessey Venom GT



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