Galileo defined speed as the distance covered per unit of time. For all of human history, in one way or another, we have been obsessed with the concept of moving from one place to another as quickly as possible. The pursuit of speed has been a moving target, from Chuck Yeager to Usain Bolt to Apollo 10 (Mach 32 returning from the Moon- the fastest humans have ever traveled). Speed has been a lifelong obsession for one Texan with a name straight out of a spaghetti western- John Hennessey.
Hennessey began his pursuit of speed in 1991 by racing, tuning, and building cars. He even set a record at Bonneville. Eventually, the financial realities of being a racecar driver set in, and he thought, “Maybe someone would pay me to modify their car.” 33 years later, Hennessey Performance has grown into one of Earth's premier aftermarket tuning companies and has modified over 18,000 cars.
Never one to stand still for long, Hennessey began seriously thinking about building a car from scratch. Anyone who knows a thing or two about the automotive industry knows this is a monumental undertaking. In many cases, automotive giants invest hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D just to get the first handful of prototypes on the road before manufacturing even begins. Despite the overwhelming odds, the Hennessey Special Vehicles launched the Venom F5 in August of 2014, rocketing Hennessey into the Hypercar market. Its 6.6L twin turbo V8 produces a mind-boggling 1,817 Horsepower that pushes the car's top speed to a theoretical 300+ MPH (achieving top speed is more difficult than you’d think). To put that power into perspective, a brand new Toyota RAV4 produces 203 HP- the Venom F5 weighs significantly less than the SUV and delivers nearly 9 times the power. The Venom F5 has a power-to-weight ratio of 1,298 horsepower per ton, which is the best of any car currently on sale. Cars that look like the Venom F5 make a sound that is predictable- high-pitched, frantic revs that zing more than a punch. The monster twin turbo V8 produces a fury that sounds more like a dragster than a slick European supercar-and that’s all part of the appeal. Think cowboy boots rather than Oxfords and a dinner jacket.
The build quality of the car is exceptional. Once you lift the vertical doors and settle into the car, you notice that it’s tiny, as all these cars tend to feel but also very well put together. The interior reminds me a lot of the latest Ford GT. Carbon Fiber everything, machine milled aluminum control knobs, yolk steering wheel with shift paddles attached that have the most satisfying paddle shift ‘click, click’ I’ve ever come across. To sum it up, the fit and finish of this Hypercar is outstanding.
I met John Hennessey just an hour before the opening of the brand's latest store, Hennessey Nashville, co-located with Raging Bull Nashville (Lamborghini). If you didn’t already know who John Hennessey was, you might mistake him for a real estate agent or an architect. He’s calm, affable, and almost soft-spoken—certainly not the speed-obsessed mad scientist one would expect.
I asked John, “Why Nashville?”
“Our son Cole graduated from Belmont, so we’ve spent a lot of time in Nashville and grew to love it,” John explains. “There are a lot of incentives to settle and do business here. I see a lot of people moving from the West Coast and landing in either Texas or Tennessee. We decided it was the place to be.”
Before the reveal of the Venom F5 at the Nashville grand opening, Hennessey spoke about the future of the F5. Other hypercar companies have achieved 300+ mph speed runs, but those were accomplished only in one direction; the goal for the F5 is to push 300 in two opposing directions- back-to-back runs pushing the 300 mph barrier. Hennessey says they hope to be the first to pull this off before the end of the year. In his grand opening speech, he quoted JFK’s famous “We choose to go to the Moon” speech -“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”.
That ethos sums up Hennessey Performance quite well. What they do is exceptionally difficult. Building a car you can drive to Cars and Coffee and back, then break track lap records and push beyond 300 mph on road tires is borderline impossible—yet here we are.
Just before the unveiling of the Venom F5, John Hennessey, sporting his iconic Cowboy hat, said, “We do these things because they are hard. That helps our team, drivers, and engineers better along the way and helps us deliver a better product to our customers.”