Well-known episode of Jay Leno's Garage, the car featuring today, the Hennessey Blackbird. You know, I've known John Hennessey, I guess we met in '93 when he was just kind of a hot rodder with a shop. At the time he was taking Vipers and putting different rear ends in them, you know, for acceleration and speed. And oh, and every year it'd be something else. I think he was the first guy to go 200 in a Mustang on a track.
All right, here comes Jay. No betting beyond this point.
189, 192, 183, 185, 97, 200, 2013, 204, 205, 207. 207, baby.
We did that together. That was great fun. And it just each year, you know, he just grows more and more as an engine guy and a designer guy. And this is his latest work. It really is, I think, a crowning achievement. It's a great looking car. There's some aerodynamic... We'll talk to the chief designer in just a second. But just through the air, comes through here, comes out, goes into here. I've never seen these air intakes this far forward. And it works. You know, I think it's a great looking car. It looks like a supercar, but it looks different than other supercars, which is what you want. Let's meet Nathan Malik. Nathan, come on in, my friend. You're the VP of design.
Hey, great job. It really looks good. It's a good-looking car without looking generic. You know, there's a tendency to make all supercars... Is that a Ferrari, McLaren, a Corvette? What is that? This looks different from everything else out there, but it looks like it belongs in that group. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it looks like a proper supercar.
Well, the main inspiration of the car is, of course, the SR-71 Blackbird. So, it's named after that plane. And I think in side view, you kind of see it, but where you're standing on this side pod inlet...
Is really the only hard crease on the car. And that comes straight from the... it's called the chine line on the SR-71. Like kind of goes around the perimeter of the plane. And it just gives this car that stance and tension and tie-in to the SR-71. And two, I should say, we're making 71 of these.
And that's an old school... You know what's interesting? They've updated it over the years and I sat in the cockpit and it was all electronics, you know, modern digital, and the oil pressure gauge looks like from about 1948.
Right in the center of the dash.
And I said, 'Is this electronic?' No, it takes oil from... Yeah. I said, 'Why do you have that?' Because, you know, electronics fail. Oil pressure gauge does not fail. They never had one fail.
So, they just kept that in.
I just thought that was pretty cool.
That is really... that you had basically something that's worked since the '40s.
Why change it to something electronic and then, you know, battery goes dead? You don't know your whatever it is. You know, it just measures... oil comes through that line and pushes against the gauge. I thought that was pretty cool.
That is very cool. Well, they have something else in the cockpit. I don't know if you saw this, but it's called a whiskey compass. So, it looks like there's whiskey, but it's a compass, and it's kind of lubricated with oil that kind of looks like whiskey. Anyway, we put one of those in the center stack of the car.
So, put your phone away. Just navigate with your compass.
Right. There you go. Yeah.
And some whiskey, too. Yeah. Throw it in there.
Any other aspects from the plane that you've incorporated into the car?
Yeah. I think if you looked at the car kind of head-on, you know, the plane has this shape where it kind of comes to a point and then you have the two flanking nacelles on either side and you really get that aesthetic when you look at the front of the car and then it leads into these side pod inlets. But I think just in general, the spirit of the plane, it was meant to go long distances over a high rate of speed. And that's really what the point of this car is, too. Take it on a long, you know, getaway spirit of driving.
So, it's more than just kind of the shapes and design features of the plane. It really embodies the spirit of the plane.
Right. Of course, the question anybody asks, why isn't it black?
Many people have asked that and believe me, a lot of customers are speccing this black, black carbon, everything, but it just wouldn't show the lines.
You can't have your launch car be black.
Now, was the SR... that was a matte finish, wasn't it?
It was. Yep. It was matte.
Right. Right. Yeah. Okay.
That was before matte was cool. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true.
And that plane's what, 80 years old? 70...
Something like that. And I think it retired in '98 and on its last flight it broke all kinds of speed records and it's just nothing's beat it since.
Yeah. Now this is normally aspirated. I like the fact that John has gone back to his roots. No turbochargers, no superchargers.
It's what everyone has been asking us to do. This is the car that everyone has been wanting, that man and machine connection. I think with our Venom F5, we've kind of maxed performance at over 2,000 horsepower. I don't know how much more you could get out of a car.
It gets a little crazy. I mean, it gets a little bit like I always say, 'Hey, 100.' Hey, why am I in jail? Well, officer, what happened? You don't realize you're going at 150 miles. I mean, it's crazy. To me, all the fun is between 40 and 120, and going through that gearbox and shifting and hearing the motor, especially a motor like this unencumbered with, you know, turbos to quell the sound or superchargers. I think it's a great idea to just go back to basics because nobody else is.
Nobody else is. Yeah. I think in terms of the hypercar or supercar world, it's kind of shifted, I think, the expectation for what these things should be. Like I said, I think with the F5 over 2,000 horsepower, where do you go from there? Right. So, this and for us, I think people were probably expecting, you know, knowing John that, oh, it'd be 3,000 horsepower and 400 miles an hour. So, this is kind of out of left field.
Well, you know, there's a certain maturity that comes with getting older and you start to go back and just massage what you got and make it a little bit, you know. I mean, when you're in your 20s, a thousand, 2,000 horsepower, it's all about horsepower. Now it's about just the whole... See, the thing I like about this, it looks like the whole package. Sometimes you got a big honking V8 in the back and horsepower fixes a lot of problems, you know, but to have a nicely balanced package. And what is this going to be, about between 800 and 1,000 horse, something like that?
800 to 850. 850. It'll be the most powerful naturally aspirated V8 ever put in a production car.
Okay, that's good enough.
Partner at Elmore is building that engine powertrain for us and over 9,000 RPM, all to the rear wheels. Six-speed manual gearbox.
Cam in block? Overhead cam? What do you get?
Overhead. Overhead cam. Dual or single?
Oh, dual on each side. Oh, okay. Oh, this is... And how many liter?
6.2. That's about what, 389, something like that.
Yeah. We're still working on the details, but yeah.
And it's your own engine.
Well, you see, to me, that's also the thing. So many supercar manufacturers buy a Mercedes engine or somebody else's engine, and that's fine.
But it's not really... You know, I used to love the English company TVR. They didn't last very long, but they had an engine called the Speed Six. They took a six-cylinder, they turned it sidewards, they modified it. Just seems so cool that they... First of all, who does a six in a high-performance car? They did it and it called back to the name from the '30s, you know, the Speed Six. And I just thought it was really great and I love the fact that they were really serious about building a proper car and doing their own engine. And that's what I'm really proud of John, that he kind of went this route.
It's a huge commitment, you know, on his end. But for us to be a fully homologated car, we kind of had no choice. You know, we wanted... because we agree, I mean, to have your own, the heart of the car being your own is huge, but then to meet all the emissions and everything else that you got to do, we couldn't... it had to be all new.
And of course with electrification giving an extra thousand, 50, I mean, you can't beat it. So just go back to basics. Go back to what people like, you know. I mean, there's really not a car that's more fun to drive than a Miata. If you get in that thing and you zip around, I've got one. I put a supercharger on it. It's great. I enjoy it. And so when you can bring that feel to a real high-performance car, I think that's what you want to do.
I totally agree. I think we've been through, at least in this space, but maybe broadly for automotive, a bit of our own quartz crisis that the watch world went through in the '70s and '80s. And I think it's pretty clear what true enthusiasts want. It is basically this: it's NA, six-speed manual, no electrification, but there's no screens.
Well, don't you have to have a backup camera? Does that not require for regulations?
You do, but it's buried in the... kind of hidden in the rearview mirror.
Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. Okay.
So, I guess technically there's one.
So, well, that's not... that's a rearview mirror. I get it. All right. Very cool. Very nice.
And then there's one other thing about this car that sets it apart from everything else. And it's a bit of a... we haven't really talked about it a ton, but we kind of designed this as a team with the wives in mind, because race cars are cool and we love all that, but your wife's not going to get into the race. So, this has a ton of luggage. I think the most luggage space of any hypercar. So, you can fit two full-size carry-on bags in the front. There's luggage behind the seats and then in the quarter panels there's even more. So, it really is meant to be used over long distances.
And then you have a, like, 'Honey, I'd love to take you to the track, but there's not enough room.' But what about taking the Hennessey? [laughter] Sorry. Then you're screwed. You got to take... Well, that's funny. Well, I know my wife would call these open versions, 'Ow, my hair cars.' You know, cuz you go for a ride, 'Ow, my hair. Oh, and we have to pull over.' [laughter] It just makes me laugh. It just makes me laugh.
But I think that's good thinking. I mean, building a supercar with some trunks. But you know, I've got a Ford GT. Nothing. You carry more. Have a Harley, you fit your luggage, because you're going to get more on the Harley than you were going to get in the Ford GT. Yeah.
So, no, that's what... Well, that's what I mean. Just being a well-thought-out project because...
In the early days, I don't think John would mind me saying this, it was just about horsepower, just brute strength. I could just pummel the other guy, you know, and as you grow up and you mature, this is what you get. I mean, it's fun to see at this stage in his life to have... he got luggage space and I just think it's really great. I'm very proud of him. I think he's great. It's really grown as a company because you look at all the companies that have come and gone since the '90s. Yeah. 'Oh, we're building this supercar.' You know, I've had people bring stuff here and, 'Oh, we're waiting for our certification. We should have it in two weeks.' It never comes. You never get the certification, you know, and that's what's great about this.
Well, there's certainly a lot of people, a lot of doubters.
But, you know, we talk about that often, just how many companies and American companies too that have come and gone that have all these, you know, grand plans and everything. It's really special. And I think, you know, one thing we were talking about earlier with John was just the honor, you know, kind of the weight of responsibility we feel just being an American supercar company, like there's not many that, you know, do this, right?
Tell me about the brakes. What brakes are we using?
