The latest Hennessey creation is a supercharged 2015 Ford Mustang. Hennessey
We live in a world where fuel economy is so important, even Lamborghini is working on hybrid cars. But while it feels like everyone is chasing superlative miles per gallon specs, a few intrepid (stubborn?) car makers are going retro and building engines with power figures to make the most steroidal muscle cars blush. The latest is John Hennessey’s HPE700 Supercharged, a customized 2015 Ford Mustang that spits out an outrageous 717 horsepower.
Hennessey’s firm specializes in taking powerful cars and making them way more powerful. Take, for example, the Venom, its gutted and rebuilt Lotus Exige, which holds the unofficial record for world’s fastest production car.
The production version of the Mustang is hardly a slacker, providing a more than ample 450 hp. But that wasn’t enough for Hennessey, who added a supercharger to send highly-compressed air into the combustion chamber and add 267 hp to the already powerful V8 engine’s output.
The HPE700 makes a tire-smoking 632 pound-feet of torque at 4400 rpm, which translates to a 11.2-second quarter mile and a zero-to-60 time of 3.6 seconds. Those are very, very impressive numbers, and they match up with the HPE’s obvious competitor, the 707-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat. For the most powerful production car ever made by an American automaker, Dodge engineers cranked a 470-hp Challenger up by 237 hp with, yes, a supercharger. The Hellcat, like Hennessey’s Mustang, also benefited from a slew of strengthened components to make sure it could handle the extra power. The exhaust system, fuel pump, and fuel injects have all been upgraded.
The HPE700 is made to challenge the hugely powerful Dodge Challenger Hellcat. Hennessey
Customers interested in snagging an HPE700 have a bevy of options. Besides exterior badging, the body can be outfitted with various aerodynamic accessories including a lip spoiler, side sills, and a speed bump-scraping front splitter. Brembo brakes are also an option, since sometimes you’ll need to slow down.
The best part is the base price: A very affordable $59,500, including the cost of the base Mustang. That makes it a touch cheaper than the $59,995 Hellcat. The Cat will be easier to track down, however: Dodge told Autoblog it has no plans to limit production, while Hennessey will build only 500 units of the Mustang, including convertible variants.
Hennessey will only make 500 units of the car. Hennessey
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