American hypercar manufacturer Hennessey seems to permanently be on the move, launching a new special edition, a new version of the Venom F5, or testing some new aero iteration ahead of mounting an assault on the 300-mph mark. With the slew of announcements the automaker has made this year already, it’s easy to forget that some of its coolest projects have taken a backseat. Once Hennessey is done building 99 Venom F5s – 9 of which are mysterious yet-to-be-announced variants – there are two new models in the pipeline, a 6×6 electric hyper-GT, and a pure, analog hypercar that aims to be an American successor to the Porsche Carrera GT. We’ve spoken about both before, but in an exclusive interview with John Hennessey, CarBuzz found out some cool details about the latter, including the codename under which it’s being developed.
Project Overlord: An Extreme Analog Hypercar
Hennessey’s 6×6 electric hyper GT sounded cool enough when we found out it was being developed under the name Project Deep Space, but the combustion-powered analog hypercar that’s been given preference in the developmental timeline has an even cooler codename: Project Overlord.
“So the codename for the car is called Project Overlord, and the idea is that Overlord would sit side-by-side with the F5 and they would complement each other very well; both mid-engine extreme vehicles, but delivering their performance in very unique very, very different ways.”
– John Hennessey, Hennessey Founder and CEO
The Venom F5 is hardly what anyone might consider to be overweight and unengaging, especially with the new manual gearbox in the Venom F5-M, but according to John, the plan was always to have something super lightweight and high-revving.
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“A manual, open-top, lightweight, high-revving, driver-engaged car is something that we want,” he told us, explaining that “our original inspiration for that was Venom GT. Going back 10-15 years, that was an extreme analog car: manual, open-top.” Previously, Hennessey himself had likened Overlord to the Porsche Carrera GT, due to its visceral nature and high-revving V10 engine paired with a manual transmission, but the Venom GT is equally as wild, albeit not entirely unique. Overlord will be different, however.
A Bespoke Platform For Hennessey’s Most Focused Hypercar To Date
As we all know by now, the Venom GT was not a true Hennessey. It was a modified Lotus Elise chassis that still had a Lotus VIN. But Overlord will be all-Hennessey. Speaking of the Venom GT, Hennessey admits “It was based off the Lotus, [but] our next car, Overlord, will be its own bespoke piece, just like F5. I think that’s something that resonates with our clients, and I think […] having a car like that, that is very limited, very bespoke – it’s what the market is wanting.”
High-End Hypercars Are More Than Just A Driving Experience
We’ve seen hyper-analog cars come into vogue again in the last couple of years, with the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50, De Tomaso P72, and Nilu hypercar being three prime examples of well-heeled car fanatics wanting engagement over outright speed. But is there a saturation point for cars like this?
“I don’t know,” says Hennessey, “but I think, for us to be building these cars in Texas, our clients come to us and they really like and resonate with the whole Texas swag.” What does he mean by this? Well, he explains that buying a car like this is more than just the physical ownership experience; customers are buying into the culture of the automaker itself.
“You know certain people that buy Paganis or Ferraris, they like going to Italy and they like the whole immersion and the Italian culture. But we kind of have our own version of that in Texas. Instead of having this really great pasta, you come to Texas, we have really great meat and we have barbecue. We go eat steak [with our customers].”
Hennessey says, “They’re kind of buying into the whole experience with the manufacturer. That’s the relationship we have with so many clients: they like the relationship with me and my family and our small team.”
When Will Project Overlord Arrive?
Project Overlord has been in the pipeline for a while; we first heard about it in July last year, and earlier this year, Hennessey design chief Nathan Malinick told us that its development had been accelerated due to customer demand. Essentially, customers wanted this hyper-analog experience more than Project Deep Space, so the latter was pushed back and Overlord was brought forward. So, surely, that means we’ll meet Overlord soon? Sadly, not so.
Before our chat with John Hennessey ended, we had to ask when we’d get to meet Project Overlord. “I think there’s a lot left to be done with Venom F5,” explains Hennessey. That was prior to the announcement of the Venom F5-M and confirmation that there was at least one more Venom F5 variant still to come. Only 24 Venom F5s have been delivered so far, and engineering to reach 300 mph is ongoing. With that in mind, the timeline for Project Overlord is “maybe, maybe the end of the decade.”