Explore the breeding grounds of the Ford Velociraptor.
Between Austin and Houston sits the sprawling Hennessey Performance complex in Sealy. Many people have probably driven by and not given the big tan building with the red signature on one side any thought, but inside is a veritable Willy Wonka’s factory of automotive excess.
Well known among gear heads and elegant automobile fans, John Hennessey’s company has been making fast cars even faster since 1991, fabricating warrantied, track-tested high-performance cars, trucks and even the occasional motorcycle.
Hennessey, 55, has made a career of milking every last mile per hour and horsepower out of a car.
On the company’s 143-acre property, Hennessey’s team has produced cars for talk-show king Jay Leno, country-music superstars Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson, Aerosmith rocker Steven Tyler, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and a number of pro football stars, including former Texans defensive end Mario Williams.
Clients are about 98 percent men, Hennessey says, but the love of cars is worldwide. The average customer spends $25,000, but some builds are as low as $5,000.
“I have been to Siberia, all over Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Mexico,” Hennessey says. “There can be all these cultural barriers between us, but car people are all the same.”
Big spenders and car nuts know all about Hennessey’s work and will wait weeks, and sometimes months, to get their vehicles back with newly modified guts that can smoke lesser cars on the track. Hennessey’s team builds about 15 cars a week. Carporn TV shows such as “Top Gear” routinely drool over what’s being made in Sealy.
A Hennessey Venom GT Spyder built for Tyler for $1.1 million sits in the Sealy showroom. It was auctioned for charity early last year and is back at Hennessey for an oil change.
It sits idle just steps from the sales offices with a twin-turbocharged 7.0-liter V-8 capable of delivering 1,200 horsepower and 1,155 pound-feet of torque. The six-speed manual transmission can send the car from zero to 60 mph in just under three seconds.
Nearby, a 2018 Ford GT ’67 Heritage edition, worth more than $500,000, sits in quiet slumber. The car was hand delivered to Hennessey by a Ford representa-
tive in late March.
One of the prized vehicles recently resting in the packed Hennessey garage is a 2018 ZL1 Chevrolet Camaro, which, after a series of tweaks and upgrades by Hennessey’s people, has been rechristened “The Exorcist,” a direct competitor to the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon.
The Exorcist, with a pious logo and black-and-red paint job, is going to be limited to a production run of only 100. Even though The Texican gets to ride in the Exorcist, we don’t get to touch its top proven speed of 217 mph. Dodge’s Demon has a top speed of just 168.
“I’ll always need to have the full, automotive visceral experience with the exhaust and engine sound along with the aroma of gasoline and oil,” Hennessey says, alluding to the evolution of electric and autonomous cars.
“Nothing will replace the excitement of driving a fun car.”
Still, tastes are changing, Hennessey says, and he tries to keep up with what consumers want.
As of late, Hennessey says that he and his team have been modifying more and more trucks, including the popular Ford Raptor pickup. He didn’t know at first why anyone would want to modify a truck back in 2010, when the first Raptor came in.
“One of our techs built a custom twin-turbo for it because we knew we could tune it,” Hennessey says.
A YouTube video of the 800 horsepower truck on the dyno tuner went viral. Soon hundreds of inquiries came in, and the Hennessey VelociRaptor was born. In the past year, the average Raptor customer was spending up to $25,000 on souping up his truck.
“More than half of the approximately 400 vehicles built in the past 12 months are trucks or SUVs,” he says.
Hennessey says over a barbecue lunch that he is even mulling over doing something special with a Jeep Wrangler. His daily vehicle is a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, which has received an HPE1000 4.5L supercharged upgrade.
The Texican gets to take it down range at the drag strip next door, the Lonestar Motorsports Park, home to a quartermile strip. Hennessey’s modified vehicles are tested and proven by professional drivers and technicians on the strip, which he purchased in 2005.
During weekends with good weather, the track is buzzing with amateur racers from across the region, with their specially tuned garage creations tearing down the track as hard rock blares out of the PA system. Hennessey would like to eventually expand the track’s offerings now that Texas World Speedway has closed.
In the early ’90s, when Hennessey started modifying Dodge Vipers to reach speeds that were unheard of, car companies were skeptical.
Car people, though, gravitate toward other car people who are pushing limits and changing the game, so everything soon fell into place.
“Once we started getting an established relationship with the manufacturers, we started working together, and that was maybe a decade ago,” Hennessey says. “We now call each other for help and pointers when we need something.”
Hennessey doesn’t think that he will ever fully retire.
“I can’t imagine ever fully retiring. I’m able scratch my creative itch by building new and exciting vehicles and sharing them with our friends and customers. But if I did decide to take a break from cars, I’d like to write and produce a Broadway musical.”
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