John Hennessey’s herd
The hero of our story wears jeans and a polo shirt instead of a cowboy hat and a leather weskit. He rides the wildest horses and trains them on his ranch in Sealy, Texas, and is untiring in his efforts until he has them performing at their very best. His herd is well known worldwide. From his stables come more full-blooded steeds than were ever ridden into his corral. The man calls himself John Hennessey, the cowboy among the American tuners of sports car models. His ethos is founded on horsepower, torque and speeds well over 300 kilometres an hour. His newest foal is the Corvette ZR750.
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- All John Hennessey offers owners are plaques with the serial number on the motor and the dashboard, model badge and custom foot-well mats, nothing more in the way of visual gimmickry.
Rawhide
Again the horsepower trainer has taken on one of the hottest sports cars around. We speak here of a 6.2 litre V8 with compressor boost producing 647 horsepower and 823 Newton metres of torque, and that’s in standard trim. It doesn’t honestly sound as if there’s much room for improvement here. But John Hennessey is determined to find the hidden potential in this beast, above all to let it breathe more deeply. He provides more throughput for the compressor air flow and ups the pressure from 0.6 bar to 0.9. Now that the V8 has stronger lungs there need to be modifications to the cylinder heads. The engine is given new valve springs and an optimized camshaft. Sports catalytic converter help the exhaust to do a better job and the motor management program has been tweaked to keep all under control and allow the maximum RPMs to rise by 200 to 6,700.
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- To get 765 horsepower and 987 Newton metres of torque from the Corvette ZR1 Hennessey optimizes the compressor and the air flow to the 6.2 litre V8 engine.
A horse without allures
Okay, enough of our effort to be witty: When it comes to performance John Hennessey is not a man for jokes. And this is why he scrupulously avoids any visual gimmickry which could distract from the essentials. All he offers owners are plaques with the serial number on the motor and the dashboard, model badge and custom foot-well mats, nothing more.
As one on the last straight shooters the Texan goes his own way, riding off into the sunset on 765 horsepower. Cue the banjo and the harmonica, slow fade to black, roll the credits! That’s what we call the perfect ending for an automotive Western.
