Hennessey Performance founder and boss John Hennessey has a new weekly vlog, filmed as he drives to work. The first one went up last week and for the most part it covered how he got started in the tuning business. Long story short, it’s the same way most gearheads get their feet wet in the wonderful world of excessive horsepower. Rather than keeping it a hobby, however, he just kept going.
Hennessey's car videos are pretty cool:
This week’s vlog – shot from a 2018 Mustang fitted with the company’s HPE800 supercharged package – is a bit juicier than an origin story. There’s still plenty of that, not to mention lots of marketing speak on the greatness of Hennessey Performance that at times feels a bit forced. But mixed in with that during the first few minutes are some tidbits about the company’s hypercar, the Venom F5.
Hennessey doesn’t go into detail, but he does tell us the show car will be on display in California during Monterey Car Week. He also says that “something special” on the F5 would be unveiled during the event, specifically August 24 at The Quail. To qualify that a bit further, he says people will get to see “a very special aspect” of the car. We take that to mean something physical as opposed to hard-and-fast performance figures, especially since Hennessey admits in the vlog that no such testing on the F5 has even taken place yet.
The Venom has plenty of poison:
We’re expecting this special reveal to be the Venom’s engine. When the car was revealed last year, the mill was said to be a 7.4-liter biturbo V8 generating an alleged 1,600 horsepower (1,193 kilowatts), all routed to the rear wheels through a seven-speed paddle-shift gearbox. Since that first unveiling, we’ve seen the Venom’s exterior and interior, but nothing on the engine. It’s pretty much the only aspect that’s left to see.
Hennessey intends to build just 24 Venom F5s total – 12 for the U.S. and 12 for global markets. In the vlog he says most of the orders are already filled, and that testing on the hypercar should begin in earnest next January.
Gallery: Hennessey Venom F5
