Discontinued in favor of the Mach 1, the GT350 is a high-revving pony that employs a flat-plane crankshaft V8. The Ford Motor Company dubs it Voodoo, and in bone-stock configuration, the free-breathing engine develops 526 horsepower and 429 pound-feet (582 Nm) of torque.
Hennessey Performance Engineering is much obliged to improve those figures, and the resulting HPE850 Supercharged Upgrade can only be described as a wowzer. The go-faster shop from Texas published a reaction video to bring the point home, starring an owner taking delivery of his HPE850 Supercharged Upgrade Shelby GT350 and a very charismatic kid.
The little guy appears to be the most fascinated by the acceleration, but the owner isn’t exactly bored either. Both of them are grinning to their earlobes with joy, which is understandable for a vehicle with 858 horsepower and a peak torque rating of 673 pound-feet (912 Nm) at 4,600 revs. As you’ve guessed by now, the secret to this performance is a thumpin’ great blower.
In addition to a 3.0-liter supercharger, Hennessey also improves the fuel injectors, heat exchanger, induction system, and throttle body with high-flow units. All of the necessary gaskets and fluids, chassis dyno calibration, and road testing for up to 200 miles (322 kilometers) are included as well.
Hennessey and HPE850 exterior badges help differentiate the car from the stock specification, along with Hennessey-branded premium floor mats and a couple of serialized plaques. One of them is affixed to the dashboard on the passenger side while the other is found - as expected - under the hood.
Every HPE850 Supercharged Upgrade is covered by a two-year/24,000-mile limited warranty, and the retail price for all the aforementioned parts is $24,500 including labor. With the right set of rubber shoes and on a sticky drag strip, the Hennessey-tuned GT350 can hit 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour) in 3.3 seconds while the quarter-mile comes to a conclusion in 10.8 seconds at 133 miles per hour (214 kilometers per hour).
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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