There can’t be many of us out there thinking that the muscle cars overhauled by Hennessey are in any way lacking. They typically tout four-figure horsepower outputs and are often built from the most muscular (and expensive) of muscle cars, after all. A UK perspective on what it produces is inevitably skewed somewhat, but it’s still hard to imagine every cars and coffee meet crammed with Exorcists, Mammoths and VelociRaptors. And whatever cars it has brought along, too.
Nevertheless, apparently demand is sufficiently bumper at Hennessey these days for it to create a new sub-division specifically for ‘ultra-exclusive, ultra-high horsepower vehicles’: Hennessey Special Operations. The regular (if that’s even the right word) stuff will continue, with HSO there for projects that go even further. Where more than 500 Hennessey conversions leave Texas every year, only 15-20 HSO commissions will be built annually. Prospective customers will have to apply for a build slot via the HSO website.
This being the upper reaches of what Hennessey can do, Special Operations is starting with something modest… it’s planning to build a 1,700hp Dodge Challenger. Specifically a 1,700hp Demon 170, the most exclusive and powerful of the Hellcat SRT cars; a vehicle that left the factory with 1,025hp (for crying out loud). Undeterred, Hennessey plans to replace the supercharged 6.2 V8 with an ‘all-new blueprinted motor and transmission’ that will feature two turbos and something in the region of another 675hp. Additional details are patchy for the moment, but performance is going to be ‘astounding’, says Hennessey, with a targeted quarter-mile time of 7.9 seconds. At 175mph.
This won’t come cheap, of course, which is why the Demon 1700 Twin Turbo - it’s a cool name, that’s for sure - falls under the auspices of Hennessey Special Operations rather than the more workaday (all things being relative) upgrades. $200k is the projected number currently, excluding the donor car that cost just half that in the first instance. In case it wasn’t clear already, Hennessey is aiming Special Operations at the wealthiest and most power-crazed of clients. You certainly wouldn’t bank against finding a few of those in America over the coming years, especially if the real 1700 looks as good as this purple Dodge.
“The transition to becoming a manufacturer with a factory producing lots of vehicles meant that we had to shift some of our resources away from the high horsepower vehicles that have kept the Hennessey name in the automotive headlines for the past 33 years,” said John Hennessey. “We are happy to announce that we’ve created a new division within the company that allows us to build mega-powerful vehicles in small production runs. Taking my new Dodge Demon 170, removing the blower, adding a pair of turbos, and increasing power from 1,025 to 1,700 horsepower was exactly what we’ve been wanting to do.”
Haven’t we all, John, haven’t we all? And if this all sounds a bit bonkers, that’s because it is - but it is rather what we've come to expect from the tuner. The HSO website is up and running, too, so if a 1,700hp muscle car does tickle your pickle, get filling in those details. Expect your location to be no impediment.
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