Newest F-150 boasts 750 hp, retro paint
Truck features a new 2.9-litre supercharger and celebrates Ford’s 1967 Le Mans win
Another week, another lunatic build from Hennessey.
This week it’s a 758-hp Ford F-150, one that now completes Ford’s four-strong ‘Hennessey Heritage’ tribute to its 1967 Le Mans-winning Ford GT40.
The story that begat Ford’s infamous rivalry with Ferrari is an oft-told one, so here’s the CliffNotes version. By 1963, Ford was ready to buy a 90 per cent stake in Enzo Ferrari’s eponymous company, only for Il Commendatore himself to decide at the 11th hour, “nah, I’m good.”
Henry Ford II was absolutely livid, and in perhaps motorsport’s most famous act of revenge, the most performance-orientated model to ever don the Blue Oval was designed, built and signed off to compete at the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans. Its purpose? To hobble the prancing horse at an event Ferrari had won five times in the previous six years (they’d make it six from seven in 1964).
Reliability woes duly stuffed Detroit’s chances in ’64 and ’65, but the Ford blunderbuss would go on to win La Sarthe’s legendary 24-hour event four years on the bounce from ’66 to ’69, leaving Maranello’s scarlet-clad team notably red-faced.
It’s the team’s second win in 1967 that the Heritage Hennessey lineup pays particular homage to. All four confirmed models in the collection — a sixth-gen Mustang, an ’05 and an ’18 GT, and the aforementioned F-150 pick-up truck — boast the same red paint finish and white racing stripes on the GT40 Mk IV taken to victory road by Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt. To date, this is the only all-American lineup to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
This being Hennessey though, there has been some mechanical tinkering beneath the snazzy paintwork. In its ‘sport configuration’, the 5.0litre supercharged V8 now boasts 363 hp more than the stock model and a new 660 lbs.-ft of torque peak, courtesy of a new high-flow air intake, an upgraded fuel system, and a stonking great 2.9-litre supercharger.
It may still weigh the best part of 2.5 tonnes, but the Hennessey Heritage F-150 will run the quarter-mile in 12.6 seconds and hit zero-to-100 km/h in just 4.3 seconds. That’s the same as a Bentley Continental GT V8 S.
Only 19 of Hennessey’s F-150s will be built, each boasting a price tag of US$94,950. Still, for that you also get 22-in performance wheels, a 2.5-in front suspension lift kit, a six-piston front brake upgrade, and another way to flick the middle finger at Ferrari 49 years after one of it most humbling defeats.