#1982 - John Hennessey

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

We're up, Mr. Hennessey.

John Hennessey (0:14)

Mr. Rogan.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

Fun hanging with you today.

John Hennessey (0:16)

It's been a blast.

Joe Rogan (0:18)

That fucking vehicle that you have built is the most ridiculous thing I've ever been inside of my life. I can't believe how fast it is.

John Hennessey (0:25)

We only did the speed limit today, right?

Joe Rogan (0:27)

Yes, but we got there very quickly.

John Hennessey (0:29)

We got there very quickly, yes. 1817 horsepower and 3000 pounds, so you got some power to weight ratio to work with there.

Joe Rogan (0:37)

That's like 700 more horsepower than a Tesla Plaid.

John Hennessey (0:40)

Yeah, it's like taking a McLaren 765LT and adding 1000 horsepower to it. Something nobody needs, but we've sold 36 of those, the Venom F5.

Joe Rogan (0:50)

What happened to you in your life that you needed to make these preposterous cars?

John Hennessey (0:56)

Well, you know.

Joe Rogan (0:58)

Like, what is going on?

John Hennessey (0:59)

Yeah, there it is. That's the Venom F5.

Joe Rogan (1:01)

How did you get to be this guy? How did this start out? You were making these 1800 horsepower cars.

John Hennessey (1:08)

It's probably kind of like the pool hall deal when we were younger. I didn't have a good relationship with my old man. He was a car guy, but we didn't get along.

And I don't know, maybe 60 years later, I'm 60 now, I still feel like I got a little chip on my shoulder or something to prove. Maybe a little bit less now, but for sure.

Joe Rogan (1:26)

Isn't it interesting that you would never want that for your son?

John Hennessey (1:30)

No.

Joe Rogan (1:30)

Boy, is that a great motivating factor for success.

John Hennessey (1:33)

Oh, for sure. For sure, yeah. I grew up in kind of an abusive situation and neglect, and now all of a sudden, I've got all this motivation. I've had all this motivation for the last 40 years of my business career, so it's been good.

Joe Rogan (1:46)

It's funny, because you would never want that for your children. It's amazing how well it's worked out for people like you or for me.

John Hennessey (1:52)

Yeah, I mean, I don't think everybody out there that has some level of success has not necessarily been abused and motivated by negativity, but I can definitely see with our five kids with the nurture mainly from my wife, Hope, they're going to turn out just fine and they'll be plenty successful, but I don't know your story, but that's my road, how I got here.

Joe Rogan (2:15)

It can lead you to be very ambitious and very successful, but it can also just fuck your life up.

John Hennessey (2:21)

Oh, sure.

Joe Rogan (2:22)

And you can be very ambitious and very successful and also be happy, like that's possible too. That's possible too.

You don't have to have a tortured childhood.

John Hennessey (2:30)

For sure. I'm very, very blessed. To have an opportunity to build toys for people, whether it's a 7,000, 800,000 horsepower pickup truck or a Venom F5, we were talking earlier about first world problems, right?

Joe Rogan (2:44)

Yeah.

John Hennessey (2:44)

Something nobody really needs. Nobody needs to go to a comedy show or MMA, but they do it for entertainment. I tell people all the time, we're more, are those stars up there?

Joe Rogan (2:51)

Yeah, they fly.

John Hennessey (2:52)

Am I in Rolls Royce?

After the Ric Flair gummy bear, they're going to really start flying. Yeah. Yeah, so now I feel very blessed and we're definitely, you know, people come to us because they want to entertain themselves with their vehicles.

Joe Rogan (3:05)

That's a great way of looking at it too, because that's really what those kinds of cars are. When I try to describe my love of old muscle cars for people, because they kind of are not super reliable, they're not so great at handling. And, you know, so I turn them, I get them done in the resto mods, but still, but when I drive them, the experience is entertaining. It's like a ride. Like, I'm not just in a Corolla.

I'm not just in some quiet Subaru. I'm in a ride.

John Hennessey (3:34)

But does it take, like when you drive your Land Cruiser, you drive, you know, one of your older cars, does it take you back to that time either when you had that car, you aspire to have that car, you knew the guy or the girl that had that car kind of growing up and you wanted it back then, but you didn't know how you're going to get it?