[ENGINES ROARING]
MATT FARAH: You know, people talk about the golden age of
muscle cars like it was 50 years ago, like the last good
muscle car Americans came out with was in 1969 or '70.
But I disagree.
I think the golden age of muscle cars is right now.
The new Shelby GT 500 has 660 horsepower.
The Camaro ZL1 has 580 horsepower.
And even this CTS-V wagon has 556 horsepower.
Now, these two cars behind me are pretty special.
I mean, underneath, you have very similar drivetrains.
And it's a testament to General Motors that they are
willing to make this drivetrain with either a
Camaro body on it, or a station wagon body on it,
depending on what you want.
We've come to Texas, and as we know, everything
is bigger in Texas.
The portions of barbecue are massive.
The boobies are gigantic.
And a man named John has a small shop here, and he likes
to build things that go obscenely fast.
[ROCK MUSIC]
JOHN HENNESSEY: You know, this whole thing probably started
as a kid, where my dad exposed me to cars, and if a fast car
was cool, a faster car was better.
And as I grew up and had my own car, I bought a 442 Olds
when I was 16.
I bought it with my own money, and it wasn't a day before I
had the air lid flipped upside down on the Quadro Dog
carburetor trying to get more power out of it.
So I've been doing it for a little over 20 years, started
in 1991 as a hobby.
Hobby got out of control, and here we are, building probably
300 to 350 cars a year for clients all around the world.
MATT FARAH: Now, this is the HPE700 package.
And what you get for that is 707 horsepower and 717
pound-feet of torque.
Now, you probably imagine that feels great to drive.
But wait till you hear how it sounds.
Shall we?
The Camaro ZL1 is already a massive
improvement over the SS.
Not only do you get the LSA supercharged engine out of the
CTS-V, you also get the magnetic ride control
suspension, which is just about the best piece of
hardware General Motors makes.
So good that it's actually not even really worth improving
for a street car.
If you wanted faster lap times, maybe.
But the ride is really good, actually.
I like how Hennessey makes the power, too.
It's not just crank up the boost.
Because that--
yeah, you might get one or two good passes, but once it gets
heat soaked, your car starts to slip.
It's not cool.
This--
different heads, different cam, headers, exhaust,
old-school muscle car stuff.
It's not even running that much extra boost.
All the stuff is made old-school horsepower way.
[LAUGHING]
Wow!
Lot of blower whine up front, tons of
exhaust noise out back.
I'm scaring cattle right now.
They don't want no part of me on the side of the road.
JOHN HENNESSEY: GMLS-based motors are a
great platform to modify.
So new Corvette, Camaro, SL1, Cadillac CTS-Vs. I'd say right
now in the last 24 months, more than 50% of our business
is GM LS small-block Chevy-based V8s.
They're very easy to modify.
They're very reliable when they're modified.
We've got the ability to do the calibration, so they get
great fuel economy.
They drive like stock.
And most of our packages up to 700 horsepower will offer a
three-year, 36,000-mile warranty.
And I can only do that because I've got the confidence that
it's going to be reliable and live.
And the customer's going to be able to drive it like they
would drive an everyday stock car.
I can drive around like this all I want.
And the car's going to hold up.
It's going to start when I need it to start.
And if I'm going to buy a $55,000 SL1 Camaro, put
another $20,00 into it with Hennessey for all the
upgrades, I'm $75,000 into a car.
That car had better start when I want it to start.
That was only 4,000 rpm, by the way.
I need it to be reliable.
I need it to get me where I want to go.
And the good news is, this package comes with a
three-year, 36,000-mile warranty.
So when it breaks, it's on him, not you.
If you've got the money, and you want to be eating ZR1s,
this basically turns a Camaro into a ZR1.
JOHN HENNESSEY: Every car is different.
I look at every car as almost like a
stock in a stock market.
What potential does it have?
If a new BMW M3 comes out, and it's 414 horsepower,
whatever's from the factory BMW, I know, they take their
cars, and they don't leave a whole lot of meat on the bone.
They tune their cars to where, when you get it from the
dealer, there's not a whole lot of upside left.
Whereas a lot of the Ford stuff, GM stuff, a lot of
American muscle car and sports cars, typically there's a lot
more room to add more power.
And so, you look at the LS-based motors.
A Cadillac CTS-V, for instance, comes in with 556
horsepower.
That platform goes up to 700, 750 horsepower super reliably.
Now, you want to go beyond 700 or 750, then you need to look
at pistons and rods and doing additional upgrades that are a
lot more expensive.
You can do 1,000 horsepower, and we'll offer warranty with
that package.
But every package is different.
It's our job to figure out, how far can we go that we're
not pushing over the edge of reliability?
MATT FARAH: John will tell you that there are no downsides
whatsoever to this package.
And I agree with him, mostly.
You see the exhaust?
It's really loud.
And that's coming from me.
It's really, ridiculously, ludicrously loud.
It is so loud that I actually felt bad about driving past
people's houses while road testing it.
It's that loud.
And then there's a cam.
Now, a cam really wakes up an LS engine.
You get a lot more power out of it.
So I understand why you'd want one.
But you get the uneven, lumpy idle.
Now, some people love that.
Other people think that in between gears and while going
between reverse and park and drive or at a red light, it
makes the car feel rough and uncivilized.
Now here, it's up to you to make the choice if that's what
you want from your car.
This car will go 185 miles an hour in the standing mile,
which, if you recall, is about 10 miles an hour faster than I
went in a bone stock ZR1.
So you know that even if you can't do it right off the
line, sooner or later that power will
make it to the ground.
I would advise a set of sticky tires for this car, though.
Because 707 horsepower and 717 pounds of torque, I'll just
blow them right off.
Now, the bad news for someone like me is that, this car,
it's hard to see out of.
You can't wear a helmet in it.
It looks cool.
It does.
I'll give them that.
But for me, not so practical.
Fortunately, back there, we have the model of
practicality.
CTS-V wagon--
seats five, same LSA engine, same HPE700 package.
You can get it for both cars.
And that means same deal.
707 horsepower, 717 pound-feet of torque.
And while pretty much everyone that I know, anyway, would say
that a 700-horsepower station wagon is extremely cool, I
think we should find out which one is faster in a drag race.
All right, my favorite time of day--
drag racing time.
We're done with the road.
So HPE700 Camaro versus your daily driver.
JOHN HENNESSEY: They both make similar power.
The wagon actually probably makes a tiny bit more power
than the ZL1.
The ZL1's a little bit lighter.
So it's going to be a close race.
MATT FARAH: And you drive at your track all the time, and
I've never driven here.
JOHN HENNESSEY: I've got a little bit of
a home field advantage.
MATT FARAH: Home field advantage counts.
But who cares, right?
They're both fast.
Let's go race.
MALE SPEAKER: This is John, me, Thad,
and Tom against Matt.
MALE SPEAKER: Should we stick our arms out the window?
JOHN HENNESSEY: Yeah, exactly.
JOHN HENNESSEY: Master control!
MALE SPEAKER: I'm quite comfortable, how are you?
MALE SPEAKER: I'm great.
MALE SPEAKER: Wow, that's awesome.
MALE SPEAKER: We just have to go to the other county.
MATT FARAH: Oh.
OK.
POLICE OFFICER: Go back where you was.
MATT FARAH: Which county?
MALE SPEAKER: Like 500 feet that way.
POLICE OFFICER: That's Colorado County, on the other
side of the creek.
MATT FARAH: Really?
POLICE OFFICER: Just go over there.
That way everybody will stop calling in.
MATT FARAH: Are people calling in?
These things are so damn loud.
MALE SPEAKER: No, they thought we were stealing stuff.
POLICE OFFICER: No, it's the three cars.
It wasn't noise.
MATT FARAH: Oh, OK.
POLICE OFFICER: It was the three cars.
MATT FARAH: Oh.
All right.
All right, back across the creek.
Sure.
No problem.
POLICE OFFICER: You go across the creek, you'll be fine.
MATT FARAH: OK.
POLICE OFFICER: You won't hear from us.
MATT FARAH: Then they'll call someone else, right?
POLICE OFFICER: Probably.
MATT FARAH: OK.