The merry good folks over at Hennessey Performance uphold their neat Christmas tradition of strapping a tree to a vehicle’s roof and going full throttle – albeit with a Grinch twist for 2022’s season to be jolly… or grumpy!
A few Christmases have already passed since I have been working for autoevolution and one of the neat little perks of the job – during this time of the year – has been to keep an eye out for a certain Texas tuner and automotive company. You guessed correctly, I am all in for Hennessey Performance and their cool little tradition of strapping their office Christmas tree to the roof of an unsuspecting high-performance machine and then going full throttle.
It's cheerful, it’s fun, it’s roarsome, and – above all – it’s quite fast indeed. Plus, it is entirely safe, as this company does not trifle with such delicate matters and always uses the enclosed environment of a proving ground for its crazy shenanigans. So, let us first start with a recap.
Back in 2020, a Venom 1000 Race Red Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 delivered a roaring Hennessey Christmas cheer by way of reinterpreting a certain figure of speech. As such, they showed us the Texas tuning take on the “Bad Santa” trope, complete with hats and also the ‘naughty Rudolph’ in the form of the thoroughly prepared American muscle car.
Last year they switched their attention to a reworked 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S, a 750-hp beast that aimed to be crowned as their fastest Christmas tree delivery vehicle, with a clocked top speed of 175 mph (282 kph). Well, that was only a “good effort” because in 2019 the HPE1000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk was even faster at 181 mph (291 kph).
Naturally, all the action took place in the usual spot – the Pennzoil proving grounds. This year, on the other hand, was a little different, as Hennessey wanted a trifecta: wish everyone happy holidays, play with a fast car, and also test the performance of the Venom 1000 platform for the Ford 5.2-liter Predator V8 and the Mustang Shelby GT500 at the Continental Tires Proving Grounds.
By the way, the seasonal twist is always present, even if the Grinch did try to steal Christmas. Dressed up accordingly for the task, the grumpy character set his eyes on something cool – not just the company’s Christmas tree but also an Eruption Green Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 equipped with Hennessey's Venom 1000 performance upgrade.
The pack adds 1,000 horsepower, which is just the intermediate stage between the 800-hp Mustang GT upgrade and the flagship Venom 1200 for the GT500! As for the top-speed run, well, suffice it to say that you need to watch the whole comedy to get every insight. From us, just a hint: it rhymes with 192 mph and 309 kph!
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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