Hennessey Drag Races Its 1,000-HP Jeep Trackhawk

Weighing in at a whopping 5,363 pounds (2,432 kilograms), some might say the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk is not exactly drag race material. But this is not an ordinary SUV – if you’ll allow us to say 707 horsepower in an SUV is common. American tuner and supercar builder Hennessey decided to prove there’s room for improvements by pitting the boxy vehicle against a bona fide supercar, the Ford GT.

With the HPE1000 upgrade kit in place bumping output to – you’ve guessed it – 1,000 horsepower, the Trackhawk was ready to duel a performance machine tipping the scales at just 3,054 lbs (1,385 kg). Surely such a massive weight difference between the two means the stock GT took the win in the drag race? Not quite.

Numbers aside, let’s keep in mind the Trackhawk is all-wheel drive whereas the Blue Oval’s 647-hp supercar has a RWD layout. The speedy SUV pulls ahead at the start thanks to its grippy setup and substantially more power, and manages to increase its lead for a few seconds before the GT starts closing in. The quarter-mile race ends before the Ford catches up, so the bonkers Grand Cherokee takes the win. Had it been a half-mile race, the GT would’ve probably won.

Hennessey admits in one of the YouTube comments that a longer race would’ve had a different winner, mentioning it might do a rematch by organizing a roll race with the two very different cars.

As you may recall, the aforementioned HPE1000 package takes the supercharged 6.2-liter V8 engine to an immense 1,012 horsepower and a mountain-moving 969 pound-feet (1,314 Newton-meters) of torque. It’s enough Hennessey-optimized Hellcat muscle for a sprint to 60 mph (96 kph) in just 2.7 seconds and a quarter mile in 10.7 seconds at 132 mph (212 kph). Looking at these numbers without knowing the identity of the vehicle, you would be forgiven for assuming it’s a supercar.

Video: Hennessey Performance / YouTube

Article By: ADRIAN PADEANU