Christmas tree does 296 km/h while strapped to 596 kW Audi RS6 Avant

As one would expect from famed American tuners Hennessey Performance, their version of Audi’s already wild RS6 Avant is ridiculous. 596 kW is certainly enough to catapult Ingolstadt’s finest wagon past the 300 km/h mark, however, ‘tis the season to be jolly, so why not see how fast the wild wagon can go with a Christmas tree on the roof…

The seasonal speed record of 295 km/h breaks Hennessey’s previous best – 291 km/h achieved with a 745 kW Hennessey Jeep Trackhawk in 2019.

While conducting final high-speed testing of the Venom F5, focusing on tyres, braking and aerodynamics at speeds in excess of 400 km/h, the Christmas tree record was set with Mrs Hennesey’s personal Audi RS6 Avant. This comes ahead of Hennessey’s attempt to exceed 300 mph in early 2022 with the Venom F5.

“We wanted to see what my wife’s Audi station wagon would run without the tree and we managed 205 mph. Then, the real holiday fun began when we mounted a real Christmas tree on the roof. To our surprise, her wagon ran a very respectable 183 mph,” said John Hennessey, company Founder and CEO.

The Hennessey Performance team build more than 600 high-performance cars and bakkies every year, and in 2021 the 65+ strong team focussed on finetuning the Venom F5 hypercar. They are already looking ahead to Project Deep Space, the company’s first fully electrified Hyper-Lux GT.

While in the high-pressure business of making some of the world’s fastest cars even faster, the team is dedicated to having fun while they do so, and so spreading some high-speed holiday joy comes naturally to the team from Sealey, Texas.

John Hennessey: “This was a fun way to end our most recent high speed testing session with our Venom F5. Afterall, who needs reindeer when your wife has an 800 bhp sleigh?”