Venom 1000 Race Red Shelby GT500 Delivers a Roaring Hennessey Christmas Cheer

Of course, this Christmas holiday cheer was carefully orchestrated by the Houston-based aftermarket specialist – with some help from a couple of well-known companies (a.k.a. Shell and Pennzoil). Well, what can you do? Even during such times of cheer you can’t lift the throttle on marketing cooperation.

No matter, because we always dig roaring Shelbys, red high-performance vehicles, and speedy Christmas trees. Oh, wait, on this occasion they’re one and the same thing. That’s because the Race Red Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 is already sporting 760 horsepower and 625 lb-ft (847 Nm) of torque from the factory.

And Hennessey took care of the rest of the celebration setup, fitting the high-performance snake with its HPE1000 upgrade, roof bars, a Christmas tree, and the customary lights (are those LEDs or classic bulbs?).

We have no idea what the Christmas tree and lights (along with the roof bars) bring in terms of aerodynamic performance, but we do know what happens to the supercharged flat-plane crankshaft engine when Hennessey treats it to an infusion of Venom 1000.

It turns into a roaring dyno monster (you can even check it out strapped at the 0:18 mark) that’s capable of delivering 900 hp on pump gas (the full 1,000 horsepower are unleashed on E85) and 850 lb-ft (1,152 Nm) of torque.

Sure thing, it does make for an impressive Christmas postcard when you have a racetrack at your disposal to go along with the Race Red Shelby, the cheerful “Bad Santas,” and a team of people capable of delivering crazy stuff like the recently unveiled Venom F5!