HENNESSEY - Everything You Need to Know | Up to Speed

Do you like to go fast? (Zoom) Do you like loud car noises? (car engine) Do you like to have the most powerful car possible? (engine revving) Okay, then I have the perfect make of car for you. They can handle more snakes than that guy at the zoo. They

know

more about

speed

than Sandra Bullock. Their cars have more Horsepower (power) than in Kentucky. Damn derby! This is

everything

you

need

to

know

more about Hennessey (video game music) At 15 years old, John Hennessey. He got his hands on his first car in 1969, (Laughter) Olds Mobile 442. That meant a 4-

speed

manual transmission, four-barrel carburetor and two exhausts.

But the 380 HP were disappointing, they were not enough for him. Hennessey Guy (upbeat music) I'm going to compare Hennessey to Henny, because we're friends. So, Henny has his first modification that every kid would want to do on his carburetor, he put a bigger engine on it and put the hood on it. the top of the air filter to allow more air into the engine. Genius! During the first chapter of his adult life, Henny was a good kid at the Houston construction company. He owned a seasonal company specializing in asbestos removal. And that is what he had read in an article that raises something interesting.

A car writer named C van Tune has an AMC Eagle with four-wheel drive *laughs* *laughs* and a roll cage. and he ran up Pike's Peak. And that got Hennessey thinking. Wait a minute, this is just a normal guy who ran up the mountain? I'm a normal person too and he did it on an old AMC 190 hertz. What if he did it in a car? As fate would have it, 1991 was the best year for John. He took some of the asbestos company's money into his own hands (laughs), that's enough money, and started looking for the perfect car for his Pike's Peak race.

At the time, Henny saw the Porsche 959 as the best option, and while it would be perfect for his small project, a 959 is about as far from a project car as you can get. There is not enough asbestos in the state of Texas to buy you that car. So instead he struggled with the most affordable twin-turbo all-wheel drive with active aerodynamics and all-wheel steering he could find. - Four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, active aerodynamics, electronic control, shock absorbers? A Mitsubishi 3000GT BR4. Do you want to know more about that car? Watch this episode. I put a lot of love into it.

Before he could prepare Pike's Peak, he had to put a roll cage on it. And he thought...-As long as he's here, I bet he could squeeze a few more ponies out of this speedy 3-liter V6. It's 1991 and this is a new Japanese car in Houston, Texas. Search for parts because this is what it would be like to try to find high performance parts for a 1991 3000 GT in Texas. Hennessey has some mechanic friends and one of them said he could help him make a higher-flowing exhaust. And the other one was like "hey, hey?" "Maybe it can help get more speed" "Through the turbos" And Hennessey thought...

Maybe he could figure out an ECU and so on and so on using a Dyno. They modified that 3000 GT until they thought it looked like a Porsche 959. Sold out and estimated at 450 horsepower. In May 1991, in preparation for the Pike's Peak challenge, Henny loaded up some tools and parts and drove his modified Mitsubishi which he called the VR 200. And he drove to Nevada to compete in the Silver State Classic, a 91-mile race for a closed section of road. That sounds fantastic. That sounds like what I'll do for my bachelor party if I ever meet a girl who can handle me.

My friend Henny finished with an average speed of 166.3 miles per hour and won the classic despite a run-in with a vulture that broke his headlight. He smashes that turkey. He then took him home, where he served as his daily driver. Two months later, Henny took his VR 200 to Colorado to compete in the big race. The climb up Pike's Peak. With original transmission and tires on his own limited off-road experience. Hennessey piloted his modified 3000 Getty to tenth place. Tenth? That's the top 10! Henny began to think that maybe he has a talent for making fast cars and that he would rather do it than dodge mesothelioma to make a living.

To once again demonstrate how fast his tuned cars would be, he drove the VR 200 to Bonneville and set the production/supercharged F class record with a two-way average speed of 176 miles per hour. The judges said: - That impossible thing has no rebore. That cannot be the engine of production. None of these speeds are achieved with three liters of displacement. - Hennessey said... - Of course. Now give me my trophy, nerd. -Finally, they let Henny take out one of the spark plugs with a borrowed socket wrench and checked the placement of it through the spark plug hole. (Smiles) John ran home to Bonneville to marry his fiancée. (wedding music) John asked him if he would be okay with him leaving his successful asbestos business to make a living decorating cars.

She gave him her blessing. And Hennessey Performance Engineering was born - (baby crying). Then, for good measure, he returned to the Silver State and established an average speed of 177 miles per week after getting married. In 1991, four years before Post Malone was born, John Hennessey read car magazines in the bathroom to win races, get married and run a tuning company. What a year! All the press from these races established John Hennessey as a man who could make cars fast, and before long Hennessey's turn was to tune Dodge Stealths and the 3000 Getty for other people. The Hennessey VR 200 package cost $15k and people loved it.

A few years later, a customer came along, knock, knock, knock, and wanted to race his own car in the Silver State Classic, but this wasn't a 3000 GT, it wasn't even a Dodge Stealth, it was something Hennessey had never worked on. before. . A little car called... (angels singing "hallelujah") Dodge Viper. (Hiss) Smash the subscribe button. Destroy it. Destroy it. Press the subscribe button. Subscribe to Donut. Subscribe to Donut. Subscribe. Then, in 1993, the Hennessey performance began to evolve from the HPE Dodge Viper 500, or the DP 5-hunny as my friends and I called it. They raced him in that year's Classic, where he finished fourth and had an average speed of 164 miles per hour.

People had the Viper on showroom floors and on posters, but this was a running viper. Not everyone could afford a Viper, but coverage in magazines like Car and Driver and Motor Trend had people who could, literally drooling over a Hennessey Performance Modifications. Hennessey Performance has become so good at making Viper parts that Dodge sought its advice while developing the hardtop second-generation Viper that came out in 1996, just a year after the second-generation Viper came out of the rules. They were ready to put

everything

they had learned into an amazing new tuning package. The Hennessey Venom 650R! (engine revving) The 650R was one of the fastest road-legal cars in the world.

Improvements included a $37,000 rebuild that had worn cylinders and a longer stroke. Hennessey Performance raised the total power to 650 hertz of pressure and an equal number of tightening torques. All of these modifications allowed the car to accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.3 seconds, complete the quarter mile in 10.8 seconds, and reach a top speed of over 215 miles per mile. All of this can be yours for a measly $108,500 after purchasing a Viper GTS. Hey? In his trademark, Almo competed with this so that you would buy it in style. John Hennessey (Henny for short) piloted a 650R around the track at Honda's proving ground and turned it into the first Viper recorded at over 200 miles per hour, posting a top speed of 203.

In '99 he decided it was time to develop a Viper V10 biturbo. His goal for this monster called Venom 800 was 200 miles per permanent mile. The 800 made a confusing 700 horsepower to the rear wheels. In 1999, before the year 2000, he limited all technology as we know it. Hennessey came in just over 200. He hit the mileage figure of 1997 miles per hour, which was still pretty good after going from 0 to 60 in 2.9 seconds. In 2004, Hennessey Performance wanted to expand, so it purchased the Lonestar Motorsport Complex. The complex had plenty of room for car machining and customization and featured an eight-mile race track.

This contributed to some of the mystique of Hennessey Performance. They must be good at business if they buy all this land and reserve all those top speeds, right? I'll come back to that in a moment. So Hennessey went ahead with the release of their new packages for the Viper, and along the way, they offered performance upgrades for just about every car you can imagine. Mustangs. Corvettes. Porsche. Audis. Anything you can imagine, they can do it faster. But making other people's cars faster was somehow unsatisfactory for the company and its founder. So Henny let his team start developing their own supercar.

The Venom GT. Changes to the Lotus Elite chassis that include components from the Lotus Exige. Carbon fiber body and carbon fiber wheels. Of course, they have Brembo brakes that are paired with carbon ceramic rotors. Because you have to stop. The 1,244 horsepower upgrade comes from that seven-liter twin-turbo LS9 engine. (horse neighing) 1244 polished horses in a car that weighs 1244 kilograms. That's one buff horse per kilogram. That's light. Hennessey Venom GT has a top speed of 270.49 miles per mile. In January 2013, the Venom GT set a Guinness (the book company, not the beer company, the old booze chaser) World Record, making it the fastest road-legal car from 0 to 186 miles, getting there in 13.63 seconds.

By the way, 186 is not a random number. It's 300 kilometers per mile, which is what Guinness uses. It also set an unofficial 0-200 mph acceleration record of 14.51 seconds, beating the Koenigsegg Agera RS's time of 17.6, making it the fastest-accelerating unofficial road car in the world. world. I mention this off the record only as a continuation of some other things about Hennessey Performance that seem very unofficial. My friend Hennessey was also gaining a reputation among some in the automotive world as a disorganized and uncaring businessman. You know that mechanic who promised to work on his car for months? - Yes man, I'll finish on Tuesday.

Yes, Tuesday. Oh, did I say Tuesday? I mean December. In five years in five years. Yes, it's still Tuesday, but it will be Tuesday five years from now in December. -Imagine that, except that your car is worth about $100,000. And you've paid almost as much for the work and instead of months it's years. Stories abound about Hennessey Performance's mismanagement and some say they waited years for their cars and only got the trade-in thanks to John. Others have much more serious accusations. They claim that Hennessey would strip the car from him, sell the parts and never put it on display.

However, there are other stories that claim he repackaged shoddy parts with the Hennessey logo, slapped them on the car as if they were performance parts, and counted on the owners being too stupid to tell the difference. Stories so crazy you'd think they must be false, but stories so plentiful you'd wonder if they could be true. When Hennessey put his test track up for sale in 2016, it drew a lot of attention and there was a lot of thought that Hennessey Performance's reign was coming to an end, but John Hennessey addresses all of the above as unfounded damn rumors.

Scream, damn it! He has been the subject of early complaints, saying that he promised too much and that he was not doing his business well, but he swears that today things are in optimal condition. He says the eight-mile test strip was for sale to put some money back into business operations and growth without

need

ing a loan. It has since been removed from the market. He also remains steadfast in his intention to fulfill all orders placed in his store. Maybe he's a better mechanic than a businessman. Hennessey says there's no need to panic. He is a little slower than he would like and there are many things in the tuning world that are out of his control.

What is true? Don't know. But I can tell you that it's hard to beat the sleek exterior of the Hennessey Performance. I mean, the amount of surreal cars they've produced is mind-boggling. The Velociraptor makes 600 horsepower, a Cadillac Wagon makes 750, Mustangs make over 800, and if you don't like demons, there's the Hennessey Exorcist. The Exorcist is an upgrade package for the Chevy Camaro ZL1. The package offers 1000 hertz presser cranks. I've heard that windshield wiper fluid is holy water and that the horn is just a guy shouting "The power of Christ compels you!" And Hennessey hasn't finished building his own cars yet.

The successor to the Venom GT, the Venom F5, was presented at SEMA 2017. To say that the expectations for the continuation ofHennessey Venom are high would be an understatement. With chief engineer John Heinricy, Hennessey aims to break a world speed record with an unfinished American hypercar. Using the projected two-second 0-60 acceleration and top speed of 301 miles per hour, they hope to eclipse the legendary Bugatti Chiron and Koenigsegg Agera in nearly every measurable measure of speed. The Venom F5 will feature Hennessey's first patented twin-turbo V8. (Burps) Is F5 just a bunch of vaporware? I hope not. The car sounds so good you'll want it to be real. (engine revving) That's a good way to sum up Hennessey's performance.

When the F5 is finally launched, each car will cost $1.6 million. How's that for a business plan? Hey, if you're like me, you have secrets, lots of them. And if you don't want anyone or any company to monitor what you do on your computer, there is a simple solution. Express VPN. It gives you anonymity, privacy, security and you can watch videos that are not available in your region, such as anime. The best part is that it costs only seven dollars a month and you get three months free if you buy the one-year package. Visit ExpressVPN.com/uptospeed for more information.

Take back your privacy today. Go to DonutMedia.com to purchase this sweet, sweet t-shirt. Presented to purchase DonutMedia.com and this t-shirt. Follow me on Instagram at @JamesPumphrey. Follow Donut on Instagram at @DonutMedia. Watch this episode. Watch this episode. I love you.