Renowned American tuner, John Hennessey’s Performance Engineering has teamed up with an upmarket luxury goods retailer to release a special edition Viper and in an unsurprising move, has turbocharged the Dodge Challenger SRT-8 for good measure.
Designer store Neiman Marcus will offer a R1,5 million Hennessey-tuned Dodge Viper in its spring catalogue. The NM edition Viper is based on the Hennessey Venom 650R with an SRT-V10 engine – and produces 522 kW and 875 N.m of torque. The Venom 700 NM is capable of accelerating from zero to 100 km/h in 3,3 seconds, zero to 160 km/h in 7,0 seconds and goes on to a top speed of 344 km/h.
The special kit includes a VenomAero Exterior Aerodynamic Upgrades (with an all-new rear spoiler) and lightweight alloy wheels measuring 19 inches in front and 20 inches in the rear wrapped in wide section rubber. The Venom 700 NM also comes with a unique jet-black exterior finish with special black and red leather trim, embroidered floor mats, custom luggage kit and owners are allowed a day at the Lonestar Motorsports Park’s high performance driving school to for tuition on how to tame these snakes.
“The Venom 700NM offers world-class power, performance and looks in typical Hennessey style. We are very excited about our new partnership with Neiman Marcus,” said John Hennessey, owner of HPE.
Those wanting to purchase such an example will have to hurry because Hennessey and Neiman Marcus will only make seven Venom 700NMs available from April 10 2008.
While Hennessey challenges luxury brand like Lexus and BMW on the pages of Neiman Marcus catalogues, its performance division was creating an in-house rival for the Viper Venoms that exit the Lonestar based tuner’s gates – in the form of the new Dodge Challenger SRT8.
Using years of experience in Dodge tuning, Hennessey pounced on the opportunity to bump-up the outputs of the latest in a long line of Michigan muscle cars. Three stages of tuning were developed for the Challenger: the first two of which produce 373 kW and 395 kW, respectively.
The range-topping SRT700 with its Hemi-equipped V8 benefits from a custom turbocharging kit, engine stroker upgrade (displacement is now 7,0-litres), forged internals, high flow injectors, uprated exhaust system and ECU modification. This results in peak power of 541 kW at 5 200 r/min and 1 016 N.m of torque from 4 000 r/min.
Hennessey claims the SRT700 reaches 100 km/h from standstill in 3,5 seconds, passes the quarter mile in 11,3 seconds at 203 km/hand goes on to a top speed of 306 km/h. Since Hennessey is no back-yard tuner, peace of mind is guaranteed by a one-year warranty … just in case.
