In 1991, a Texan by the name of John Hennessey founded his own tuning company with the expressed intent of building bonkers high-performance supercars with staggering horsepower numbers.
Since then, Hennessey Performance has been responsible for a number of insane creations, including a 242mph Cadillac CTS-V and the 275mph 1244bhp Venom GT supercar.
In short, Hennessey Performance builds VERY POWERFUL cars.
Enter the Ferrari 458. Now, with 562bhp the standard 458 is not exactly what you'd call a slow car. In fact, with a 0-62mph time of 3.4 seconds and a (in hard-top form) a top speed in excess of 200mph, it is what you'd call a fast car. It's also regarded by many as being the best driver's car in the world, an opinion we wouldn't necessarily disagree with.
And on top of all this, the 458 is the zenith of more than half a century of Ferrari evolution, the summation of decades of racing pedigree and automotive excellence. In short, it's ruddy brilliant.
However, one 458 owner clearly thought that the 458 could do with being just a little bit faster. So he rang up John Hennessey to see what he could do.
What Hennessey did is take the 458's standard 4.5-litre engine and bolt a couple of turbochargers onto it. The result is that this 458 now produces 738bhp. We'll repeat that: 738bhp.
Thanks to the power increase, Hennessey claims that the 458 will now hit 62mph in 2.8 seconds -- more than half a second quicker than the standard car. There's no word on the 458's top speed but we'd expect a significant increase over the standard Spider's 198mph.
In time-honoured American tuning tradition, Hennessey has done nothing to the 458's brakes, suspension and gearbox. Normally, this would be a recipe for some seriously scary handling characteristics; however, the company claims that these components simply didn't need modifying thanks to Ferrari over-engineering them for future, more powerful 458 derivatives.
What Hennessey did do, however, is give the 458 something of a makeover. The car gets a bigger exhaust system, black 20-inch forged wheels, adjustable suspension and a smattering of carbon-fibre upgrades on the inside.
What Ferrari makes of the Hennessey 458 is not clear as the Maranello firm has not commented on the creation. We can't imagine that they're ecstatic though...
Click on the image below to see the 458 in action.
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