Posted on Sunday 13 April 2008
Perhaps most famous - or infamous - for its even more over-the-top take on the already outrageous Dodge Viper, Hennessey Performance is considering expanding its collection of custom cars to include more foreign makes and top of its list at the moment is the new Lexus IS-F saloon and the Nissan GT-R super-coupe.
Hennessey’s already heady list of tweaked marques includes famous brands like Bugatti, Bentley, BMW and Porsche. But now the American-based tuner is looking to add some Japanese iron to the mix with Nissan’s Godzilla and Lexus’ recently unveiled IS-F.
The Lexus will arrive first and is set of launch later this year. The planned mod list includes exhaust, headers, and intake upgrades and possibly a supercharger kit. Starting with a base of 417hp, and given Hennessey’s penchant for insane power, it’s a safe bet that the supercharger will move from ‘possibility’ to ‘near certainty’ in short order.
The GT-R on the other hand isn’t due to leave Hennessey’s shop until 2009 and no word on what mods might be done to it has surfaced yet. Still, with the company planning a tweaked Corvette ZR1 and Camaro for the same year, it’s sure to add some zip to the seriously fast AWD Japanese budget supercar.
Oh, this is going to be Great! can’t wait to see what market they try to center these models development toward. .. .the Street racing era, or complete drag, top speed layouts. Either way, both will have to contend with the upgrades coming out of RUF, Hamann, & Mansory’s camps.
Great! Can’t wait to see what the upgrades do for hp/torque + lap times. Also curious about pricing for the upgrades to the iSf and whether they’ll offer a program to tune a is350.