The $350,000 Hennessey VelociRaptor 6x6

In 1961, with the country locked in an urgent space race against the Soviet Union, NASA chose Houston as the site for its new manned spacecraft center and the training ground for its brand-new astronaut corps. Those with the fabled "right stuff" would wind up here under the South Texas sun preparing to pilot the most powerful vehicles known to man. So it's only fitting that we find ourselves back in the shadow of modern spaceflight to test this latest slice of audacious Americana: the Hennessey Velociraptor 6x6 We're here at Hennessey performance with Jason Gigley the lead fabricator, the metallurgic sorcerer the master of this domain and he's gonna tell us exactly what they did to the engine of the 6x6 Velociraptor. -- We take the small intercooler from Ford, toss it for the big air-to-air intercooler big blow-off valve a huge cold air intake a Borla exhaust and then it's the stock transmission as well -- a surprising amount of stock parts on this truck considering what it is a 6x6 what it is a Ford Raptor -- it's still a raptor -- and it's really impressive how you look at it from this angle and it would just seem like a regular Ford Raptor -- my favorite parts about yeah it's like it's like it's just like oh another afternoon like "look surprise" So they tricked out the engine gave it about 600 horsepower which is a bump up from 450 in the stock model that is noticeable you definitely feel an acceleration the whole modifications that they added the extra axle the longer bed the lift kit the bigger tires it all adds up to about 800 pounds and over the stock weight so it does need that extra power to give it and and trust me they're working and making it even more powerful because it's never enough for John Hennessey but obviously the magic of this truck is in its name six by six six wheels that third axle is not nearly as noticeable as I thought it would be looking at the truck you think this is gonna drive like a frickin tank and you know it does feel heavy it's sixty seven hundred pounds or so you ever take a couple hundred it you're gonna feel besides you're gonna feel the heft at the same time the engineering that they did at normal driving speeds it feels like any other stock pickup take me through exactly what it what it takes to turn a regular Raptor into this six wheeled beast from a fabrication standpoint so we start we put the put the factory your app there all it on a lift put a six-inch fabtech lift kit on the front damn with the extra inch coil over blocks to get about seven inches take the bed off yep just take every single thing go so so it's basically a completely disassembled back-end that you then extend and rebuild from scratch yes then we take it off the lift take it back to the behind the curtain or the secret corner and that's where the magic it is that you're the sorcerer it is magic we cut the frame off like right here then we add exactly thirty inches right to there and then we put the back half of the frame back on the front axle which is a custom Ford nine-inch it has a pass-through differential means of the drive shaft comes hooks up to it and then there's another smaller drive shaft that goes to the other one so what it has is a inverted leaf spring mm-hmm set right in the middle so the axles are out on the end of the lease papers got it probably way overdue I know down the road nothing's ever gonna happen it was weld there yeah and you guys came up with the the fender design the way it would have to just go straight like that the measurements that was all yeah yeah yeah we just you know we just figured there's there's just enough room there is base for the open enough room and then you know the corners which I think that's the lore of it I cannot believe I'm driving a six wheeled Ford Raptor right now what's even crazier is that it because it started out as a brand new twenty eighteen Ford Raptor it smells like a brand new car in here and yet it may be the furthest thing from a stock pickup that you'll find and yet strangely the ride it's a little firmer than a regular Ford Raptor but you can't really tell that you're hauling around an extra axle back there and that you've got six wheels doing all the work so it just feels like a normal pickup truck right it's it's it is hilarious it's just like uh who makes this the leaf spring being mounted to this you can basically say if this was the axle of the vehicle yeah that's what I mean this looks like special this is exactly what you know yeah this is all custom fabrication to because this is the frame and that you can take this this is the actual stock location of the shotgun Wow from right right here is where we cut the frame right like it never even happened never even happened add just 30 inches put the backpack on mm-hm you know then we got plates inside and then we put a whole plate you know if the frame is definitely over killed for sure I think everything you see under here beside the axles is completely custom yeah no no store-bought parts here the differential just seems like the real magic of this truck it really is this being the new one the Ford 90s this drive shaft short drive chef custom as well yes but it's like you know also I like the custom lettering there you know and this is this is very similar to I don't know a Peter old Peterbilt you know big 18-wheeler mhm they just have little drive shafts in between those and and it really is super heavy-duty axle Hennessey didn't do any internal work to the block it's all add-ons replacing external parts intake exhaust intercooler things like that and yet well the exhaust does a lot to do that it sounds way better than a stock EcoBoost you can hear yeah now I will say you get on it right there I don't know if you could see my bunny going like this a little bit because there's a little bit of a pulse on acceleration I don't know if it's because the two axles back there working together changes the dynamics of the car that much or it's just an unfortunate side effect of having six wheels but it was noticeable this this truck will run you about 350,000 dollars at that price point you don't really need a reason for anything I mean Rolls Royce doesn't need a reason for putting babies sheepskin on the dashboard or our 24 karat gold inserts in the seat either of those things are true because of the cachet of the Raptor because it represents extreme capability and relative luxury they a don't have any problem building these B they don't have any problem selling these and C therefore grasp their business building those Velociraptor 600 without the six wheels is actually their biggest selling item they do more Raptor than anything else at Hennessey and that's reflective of where we are as a new car market people love trucks they love pickups and this is just about the craziest one you can buy in America so I understand that there are people who think that this is probably the dumbest way that you could spend 350 grand and to them I say this is America you can do whatever you want if this is the thing that you want to spend the equivalents of a college education on and do so because it means more people will be willing to take on and create and bring to life projects like this you know it's almost too perfect that here we are just outside of Houston not too far away from NASA's Johnson Space Center President Kennedy wanted to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and that spirit of innovation of pioneering that is alive and well in this truck you might even say it's got the right stuff you

Channel: THE DRIVE

Views: 524,109

Rating: 4.7102432 out of 5

Keywords: ford raptor 6x6 hennessey, hennessey velociraptor 6x6 test drive, hennessey raptor 6x6 test drive, ford raptor 6x6 test drive, raptor 6x6, Ford Raptor test drive, hennessey velociraptor, hennessey velociraptor 6x6 review, hennessey velociraptor 6x6, ford 6x6 truck, ford 6x6 raptor, Ford Raptor, 6x6 ford raptor, six-wheel ford raptor, raptor 6x6 test drive, ford raptor, ford, hennessey, ford trucks, ford motor company, f-150, f150, Ford F-150 Raptor 6x6, Ford F-150 raptor

Id: 928sMk1YBeU

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 28 2018