What is it about Texas that produces people who look at perfectly fast automobiles and makes them think to add insane amounts of power? Ask John Hennessey, whose Venom GT just put down a world record time on the same runway where NASA used to land space shuttles.
I've known John Hennessey for about five years, ever since I visited his large headquarters in Sealy, Texas, down near where they used to make the mattresses of the same name.
Given all the stories I'd heard, I wasn't expecting the extremely polite and down-to-earth guy driving his wife's unmodified GMC in between sending his many kids off to school and picking them up from all manner of after school activities.
Back then his shop was mostly full of Vipers hot-rodded Jeeps, with the odd Ford GT and Cadillac product. Since then I've watched as his range of vehicles shift from a lot of Mopar to a lot of Camaros, Corvettes, and even a Suburban-ized Ford Raptor.
But his greatest accomplishment may be the Venom GT, his wild transformation of a relatively plain Lotus Elise into something that's almost entirely new and definitely entirely bonkers. John agreed to come on Jalopnik and be the first person to do a Q&A in our new system so fire away.
UPDATE: John just let me know he has to go (after staying for an extra hour), but he said he'd try and come back later to answer some more questions.