HENNESSEY - Everything You Need to Know | Up to Speed

**The Hennessey Story: From Oldsmobile to High-Performance Cars**

Do you like going fast? (zooming) Do you like your cars loud? (car engine) Do you like having the most ridiculously overpowered car on the block? (car engine revving) Well then, do I have a car company for you! They handle more vipers than that guy at the zoo! They know more about speed than Sandra Bullock! Their cars have more horses than the Kentucky friggin' Derby!

At the young age of 15, John Hennessey got his grubby little hands on his first car, a 1969 (laughs) Oldsmobile 442. That means four-speed manual, four-barrel carburetor, and dual exhaust. But the 380 horses it cranked out weren't enough for the young Hennessey.

I'm gonna refer to Hennessey as Henny a lot, like we're friends. So, Henny did the first mod that any kid would do on his carbureted big block back then. He flipped the cover over on top of the air filter to let in more air. Genius! For the first chapter of his adult life, Henny was a good old boy in the Houston construction business. He was running a reasonable company that specialized in asbestos abatement.

And that's what he read an article about - a car writer by the name of C Van Tune got an all-wheel drive (coughs) got an all-wheel drive AMC Eagle, put a roll cage in it, and raced it up Pike's Peak. And that got Hennessey thinking. Wait a minute, this is just some normal dude racing up that hill? I am also a normal dude and he did it in a crappy old 190 hertz per AMC. What if I did it in a car that could actually haul butt?!

As fate would have it, 1991 would be one heck of a year for John. He took some of that asbestos abatement money (chuckles) that's some good money and set out to find the perfect car for his Pike's Peak endeavor.

At that time, Henny saw the Porsche 959 as the most advanced exotic out there. While it would be perfect for his little project, a 959 is about as far from a project car as one can gets. Ain't enough asbestos in the state of Texas that could buy him that car. So instead, he wrangled the most affordable twin-turbo all-wheel drive with active aero and four-wheel steering that he could find.

All-wheel drive, four wheel steering, active aero, electronically controlled shocks - A Mitsubishi 3000GT BR4. Wanna know more about that car? Check out this episode. (kisses) A lot of love went into it.

Before he could charge up Pike's Peak, he had to put a roll cage in it. And he thought, "While I'm here, I bet I could get some more ponies out of this sweet 3-liter V6." It's 1991 and this is a new Japanese car in Houston, Texas. Finding performance parts for it would be like trying to find performance parts for a 3000 GT in 1991 in Texas. (laughs)

So Hennessey got with a few of his mechanic buddies and one of them said that he could help him make a higher flow exhaust. Another was like,

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Do you like going fast?(zooming)Do you like your cars loud?(car engine)Do you like having the mostridiculously overpowered caron the block?(car engine revving)Well then, do I havea car company for you!They handle more vipersthan that guy at the zoo!They know more aboutspeed than Sandra Bullock!Their cars have morehorses than the Kentuckyfriggin' Derby!This is everything you needto know to get up to speedon a Hennessey.(video game music)At the young age of 15, John Hennesseygot his grubby littlehands on his first car,a 1969,(laughs)Oldsmobile 442.That means four-speed manual,four-barrel carburetor, and dual exhaust.But the 380 horsies it cranked outweren't enough for the young Hennessey.(upbeat music)I'm gonna refer toHennessey as Henny a lot,like we're friends.So, Henny did the firstmod that any kid would doon his carbureted big block back then.He flipped the cover overon top of the air filterto let in more air. Genius!For the first chapter of his adult life,Henny was a good old boyin the Houston construction business.He was running a reasonable companythat specialized in asbestos abatement.And that's what he read an articlethat piqued his interest.A car writer by the name of C Van Tunegot an all-wheel drive -(coughs)got an all-wheel drive AMC Eagle,put a roll cage in it,and raced it up Pike's Peak.And that got Hennessey thinking.- Wait a minute, thisis just some normal duderacing up that hill?I am also a normal dudeand he did it in a crappyold 190 hertz per AMC.What if I did it in a carthat could actually haul butt?!- As fate would have it, 1991 would beone heck of a year for John.He took some of thatasbestos abatement money(chuckles) that's some good moneyand set out to find the perfect carfor his Pike's Peak endeavor.At that time, Henny saw the Porsche 959as the most advanced exotic out there.And while it would be perfectfor his little project,a 959 is about as far from a project caras ones can gets.There ain't enough asbestosin the state of Texasthat could buy him that car.So instead he wrangled themost affordable twin-turboall-wheel drive with active aeroand four-wheel steeringthat he could find.- All-wheel drive,four wheel steering, activeaero, electronically controlled,shocks?- A Mitsubishi 3000GT BR4.Wanna know more about that car?Check out this episode. (kisses)A lot of love went into it.Before he could charge up Pike's Peak,he had to put a roll cage in it.And he thought..- While I'm here, I bet Icould get some more poniesout of this sweet 3-liter V6.- It's 1991 and this is a new Japanese carin Houston, Texas.Finding performance partsfor it would be liketrying to find performanceparts for a 3000 GTin 1991 in Texas. (laughs)So Hennessey got with afew of his mechanic buddiesand one of them saidthat he could help himmake a higher flow exhaust.And another was like, "Oh, hey, yo,"I could maybe helpget a little more boost"from them turbos."- And Hennessey thought ..- Well, maybe I couldfind out the ECU and so onand so on and so on -- and so using the Butt Dynothey tweaked that 3000 GTuntil they thought it felt like a 959.Pumping out and estimated 450 hearses.In May, 1991, in preparationfor the Pike's Peak challenge,Henny loaded up some tools and spare partsand drove his modified Mitsubishiwhich he had renamed the VR 200out to Nevada to race inthe Silver State Classic.A 91 mile race down astretch of closed highway.That sounds amazing. Thatsounds like what I'm doingfor my bachelor partyif I ever meet a girl who can stand me.My buddy Henny finishedwith an average speedof 166.3 miles perand won the Classicdespite a run-in with a turkey vulturethat cracked his headlight.- Vaporized that turkey vulture.- So he drove it home whereit served as his daily driver.Two months later, Henny took his VR 200up to Colorado to enter the big race.The Pike's Peak hill climb.With stock gearing and stock tiresin his own limited off-road experience.Hennessey piloted his modified 3000 Gettyto a 10th place finish.10th?! That's top 10!Henny got to thinkingthat he might have a knackfor making fast carsand he'd much rather be doing thatthan dodging mesothelioma for a living.To once again prove just how fasthis tuned cars would be,he drove the VR 200 out to Bonnevilleand set the F-Production/Superchargedclass recordwith a two-way averagespeed of 176 miles per-er.The judges were like -- There is no way thatthing doesn't have a rebore.That can not be the production engine.No way you're getting the speeds like thatwith three liters of displacement.- Hennessey was just like -- I sure did. Now giveme my trophy, you nerd.- Finally, they let Henny takeout one of the spark plugswith a borrowed socket wrenchand they verified his placementthrough the plug hole.(chuckles)John raced home fromBonneville to marry his fiance.(wedding music)John asked her if she'dbe okay with him leavinghis successful asbestos businessto tune cars for a living.She gave her blessing.And Hennessey Performance Engineering -(baby cries)was born.Then, for good measure, hewent back to Silver Stateand set an average speed of 177 miles perlike weeks after they got married.In 1991, four years beforePost Malone was born,John Hennessey went fromreading car mags on the toiletto winning races, marriage,and running a tuning company.What a year!All the press from these racesestablished John Hennesseyas a guy who could get cars to go fastand it wasn't long beforeHennessey Performancewas tuning Dodge Stealthsand the 3000 Gettyfor other people.The Hennessey performance VR 200 packageran 15 grandand people loved it.A couple years late a customer came,knock knock knockingand he wanted to race his own carin the Silver State Classicbut this wasn't no 3000 GT,it wasn't even a Dodge Stealth,it was something Hennesseyhadn't worked on before.A little car called the, uh,(angels singing "hallelujah")Dodge Viper.(hissing)Smash that subscribe button.Smash it. Smash it. Smashthe subscribe button.Subscribe to Donut. Subscribeto Donut. Subscribe.So in 1993 Hennesseyperformance began developmentof the HPE Dodge Viper 500,or the DP 5-hunny like meand my friends call it.They raced it in the Classic that yearwhere it placed 4th overalland had an average speed of 164 miles per.People had seen theViper on showroom floorsand on posters, but thiswas a Viper that raced.Not everyone could afford a Viper,but coverage in magazineslike Car and Driverand Motortrend got people who could,literally salivatingfor a Hennessey Performance modifications.Hennessey Performance got so goodat making after-market Viper partsthat Dodge enlisted their advicewhile developing thehard top second gen Viperthat came out in 1996just a year after thesecond-gen Viper rolled offthe lines in '96?They were ready to puteverything they had learnedinto an amazing new tuning package.The Hennessey Venom 650R!(engine revving)The 650R was one of thefastest road-legal carsin the world.Upgrades included a $37000 engine rebuildthat had bored-out cylindersand a longer stroke.Hennessey Performance broughtthe total power outputto 650 hertz pers and anequal number of torques.All of these modifications allowed the carto accelerate from 0 to 60 miles perin 3.3 seconds, complete thequarter mile in 10.8 seconds,and reach a top speedof over 215 miles pers.All of this could be yoursfor a paltry $108500.After you buy a Viper GTS. Huh?In his trademark, Almo raced thisso you'd buy it style.John Hennessey - Hennyfor short -Piloted a 650Rround the track at theHonda proving groundsand made it the first Viper recordedat over 200 miles per hourclocking a top speed of 203.For 99, he decided it was time to developa twin-turbo Viper V10.His goal for this monsterdubbed the Venom 800was 200 miles per in Standing Mile.The 800 made a confusing 700 horse powerto the rear wheels.In 1999, before Y2k limitedall technology as we know it.Hennessey came up just short of 200.Hitting the mile mark at 1997 miles per,which was still pretty goodafter rocketing from 0to 60 in 2.9 seconds.By 2004, Hennessey Performancewas looking to expandso they purchased theLonestar Motorsport Complex.The complex had ample room for machiningand modifying cars and it camewith an eight mile drag strip.This lent to some of the mystiqueof Hennessey Performance.They must be great at businessif they're buying all this landclocking all those top speeds, right?I'll come back to that in a second.So Hennessey performance continuedto roll out their new packagesfor the Viper and along the waythey offered performance upgradesfor almost any car you can imagine.Mustangs. Corvettes. Porsches. Audis.Anything that you canimagine, they can make faster.But making other peoples' cars fasterwas somehow unfulfilling for the companyand its founder.So Henny had his team begin developmentof their own supercar.The Venom GT.Modifications to the Lotus Elite Chassisincluded components from the Lotus Exige.Carbon-fiber bodyworkand carbon-fiber wheels.They of course have Brembo brakesthat pair up with carbon-ceramic rotors.Because you're gonna need to stop.The 1244 buff horses coming out ofthat twin-turbo seven-liter LS9 engine.(horse neighing)1244 buff horses in a carthat weighs 1244 kilograms.That's one buff horse per kilogram.That's light.Hennessey Venom GT has a topspeed of 270.49 miles per-er.In January 2013, the Venom GTset a Guinness World Record -the book company, not the beer companyyou old booze hounds -making it the fastest road-legal carfrom 0 to 186 miles pergetting there in 13.63 seconds.By the way, 186 isn't some random number.It's 300 kilometers per,which is what Guinness uses.It also set an unofficial recordfor 0-200 miles per houracceleration at 14.51 secondsbeating the KoenigseggAgera RS time of 17.6making it the unofficialfastest accelerating road carin the world.I mention that unofficialrecord only as a segueinto to some other thingsabout Hennessey Performancethat seem very unofficial.My buddy Hennessey, he wasalso building a reputationamong some in the car worldas an unresponsivedisorganized businessman.You know that mechanic who'shad your car for months,promising to work on it?- Yeah man, I'll be done Tuesday.Yep, Tuesday. Oh, did I say Tuesday?I meant December.December five years from now.Yeah, it's still Tuesday but it's Tuesdayfive years from now in December.- Well, imagine that but yourcar is worth about 100 grand.And you've prepaid almostthat much for the workand instead of months, it's years.Stories abound about the mismanagementof Hennessey Performanceand some say they waited yearsfor their cars and only gotthe runaround from John.Others have much more serious allegations.They claim that Hennesseywould strip their car,sell the parts, and never get aroundto putting the performance ones in.Still, even more stories exist claimingthat he rebagged crap parts withthe Hennessey logo, stick those on the carlike they were performance parts,and bank on the owners being too dumbto tell the difference.Stories so crazy you'dthink they have to be falsebut stories so plentifulthat you wondered if they might be true.When Hennessey listed theirtest track for sale in 2016it raised a lot ofeyebrows and many thoughtthat the Hennessey Performancereign was coming to an end,but John Hennesseyaddresses all of the aboveas baseless gosh darn rumors.Hearsay, damn it!He's copped to early complaints,saying he over-promised and that he wasn'trunning his business right,but he swears that today,things are tip tippity top.He says the eight miletest strip was for saleto put some money backinto company operationsand growth without needing a loan.It's since been taken off the market.He also firmly stands by his intentto fulfill all orders put into his shop.Perhaps he's a better mechanicthan a businessperson.Hennessey claims no need for alarm.He's just a bit slowerthan he'd like to beand there's a lot in the tuning worldthat's out of his control.What's true? I don't know.But I can tell you that it's difficultto get past HennesseyPerformance's sleek exterior.I mean, the amount of unreal carsthat they have turnedout is mind boggling.The Velociraptor making 600 horsepower,a Cadillac Wagon making 750,Mustangs cranking out over 800,and if you're not into demons,there's the Hennessey Exorcist.The Exorcist is an upgrade packagefor the Chevy Camaro ZL1.The Package cranks out 1000 hertz pers.I heard that the wiper fluid is holy waterand the horn is just a guy yelling"The power of Christ compels you!"And Hennessey isn't finishedbuilding their own cars, neither.The successors in theVenom GT, the Venom F5,was unveiled at SEMA in 2017.To say that expectations forthe Hennessey Venom follow-upare high would be an understatement.With chief engineer, John Heinricy,Hennessey is shooting for aworld-beating speed recordfrom a yet-unfinished American hyper car.Using its projected two-second0 to 60 accelerationand 301 mile per hour top speed,they're hoping to eclipsethe legendary Bugatti Chironand the Koenigsegg Agera on almostevery measurable speed metric.The Venom F5 will containHennessey's first everproprietary twin turbo V8.(burps)Is the F5 just a bunch of vaporware?I hope not.The car sounds so amazing,you want it to be real.(engine revving)Which is a good way of summingup Hennessey Performance.When the F5 finallylaunches, each car will cost$1.6 million bones.How's that for a business plan?Hey y'all, if you're like me,you've got secrets, lots of em.And if you don't want just anybodyor any company watching what you doon your computer, there'sa simple solution.ExpressVPN.It gives you anonymity, privacy, security,and you can watch videosthat aren't availablein your region, like anime.The best part is that it'sonly seven dollars a monthand you get three months free if you buythe one year package.Visit ExpressVPN.com/uptospeedto learn more.Take back your privacy today.Go to DonutMedia.com to buythis sweet, sweet shirt.Brought to you buyDonutMedia.com and this shirtFollow me on Instagram at @JamesPumphreyFollow Donut on Instagram at @DonutMediaWatch this episode. Watch this episode.I love you.