F-150

Make
Ford
Segment
Sports Car

Rust never sleeps. And neither does Hennessey Performance Engineering. The Texas tuning wizard introduced its newest creation this week, a Ford F-150 called Venom. Lest you be confused, it doesn't sport the race-built, twin-turbocharged 6.6-liter V8 from the Venom F5 hypercar. Instead, it uses Ford's Coyote 5.0-liter.

With a 3.0-liter twin-screw supercharger, the engine now makes 775 hp and 685 lb-ft of torque. That's 73 hp more than the Ram TRX, Hennessey notes. The stock model features 400 hp and 410 lb-ft, so we're looking at almost double the output.

"Our dedicated Ford customers have been eager for a showroom stock 'TRX killer' since Ram unveiled the truck. Our engineers have delivered with more horsepower, more torque and more capability - I could not be more pleased," said CEO John Hennessey. "Our new Venom 775 F-150 is faster and lighter than the factory TRX, and our order books are filling fast with F-150 fans determined to regain the high-ground."

Obviously, Hennessey is referring to the Ford Raptor, which is outmatched handily in power by the Ram TRX with just 450 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque. The Ford can best the TRX in other ways, but not the braggiest way, which is in a straight line. Even though that seems silly with trucks like these.

Now, what the regular F-150 doesn't have is an off-road ready suspension, but Hennessey has a plan for that. The company offers a 6-inch lift along with 20-inch wheels and 35-inch tires. Buyers also get special Venom bumpers in front and back, and a front LED bar. Those off-road upgrades will add $20,950. If you want to go the sporty route, you can order a lowering kit with traction bars and 22-inch wheels with stickier tires for $18,950.

Hennessey will make just 100 examples of the F-150 Venom, which will get to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and through the quarter mile in 12 seconds at 117 mph. It also comes with a three-year/36,000-mile warranty. It should cost about $100,000 including the price of the donor pickup, which seems like a lot, until you look at current truck prices. You could get close to that without Hennessey even touching it. Not that we'd want to.