1,200-HP Mammoth 1200 TRX Drags Stock Corvette Z06 Z07: America Is Great Again, at 130 Mph

The Hennessey sorcerers of speed and power have all but gotten the global headlines every time one of their creations spins its wheels upon Good Piston’s internal combustion creation. Naturally, the Mammoth TRX 1200 and its 1,200-horsepower firepower (crank, not wheel – but man, there’s a lot of power here!) supercharged HEMI hit the track because that's the only purpose of a highly powerful off-road vehicle, if not to break speed records?

Its adversary is the Chevrolet Corvette C8 Z06 Z07 – a perfect rival for just about anyone under 42 inches tall but an unlikely challenger in the TRX chase of records. The flat-plane crankshaft in the bottom end of the Corvette revs up to 8,400 rpm (naturally aspirated architectures are more agitated in spirit than the whining turbo). At that engine speed, the two-seater sportscar fires up 670 horses (679 PS).

The Chevy's free-breathing induction system has its innate drawback—the low torque of just 460 lb-ft (624 Nm). These are respectable numbers, and the Z06 is not afraid to claim its Ferrari roots—the Italians have taught the GM engineers a trick or two (thousand) about how to make a high-revving V8 that’s best suited for the track.

And that’s exactly what the Z06 does—prowls the proving grounds of the Texas tuners in search of fresh quarter-mile heroes. Except this time, it’s not all bells and whistles because on the other lane lies a Mammoth 1200 TRX. Hennessey has revealed precisely zero info about their all-time greatest Mammoth, except for the power and torque figures (941 hp, 861 lb-ft).

That’s 954 PS, 1,167 Nm for a vehicle designed to navigate rough terrain while carrying various cargo, from livestock to Hennessey engineers. Note that the above numbers refer to the wheel horsepower ratings; hence, the lower-than-advertised figures suddenly have a whole new meaning regarding the quarter-mile.

Again, Hennessey likes to play cat and mouse with our expectations and doesn’t relay the final ET for the abruptly powerful supercharged pickup. We do get one value, an approximation of the trap speed. In this case, the TRX crosses the finish line at speeds over 130 mph (209 kph), but the elapsed time is unknown.

The Corvette sagged at the start but reeled in hard and crossed the line first by a whisker. The second run was a display of (premeditated?) murder, as the RAM left the Corvette for dead in its tracks and kept its first position firmly all along the 440-yard joust.

The tuning company is not interested in abstract figures but in cold, hard facts: the TRX crossed the line first. We could make a rough estimate of what the time was from the timeline of the video below, but I suspect that was a bogus run.

Not only did the sportscar leave late, lagging behind the RAM for an eternity before taking off, but the elapsed time is far above what a 1,200 TRX should achieve. If the 24-fps framerate of the video below is an accurate enough metric, then the entire 1,320-foot event lasted for precisely 15 seconds flat.

Not exactly flattering for the winner (the Hennessey Mammoth 1200 RAM TRX) or for its rival, who has proven on more than one instance that it can drop the mic on the standing quarter in 9.46 seconds at 147 mph (236.5 kph). Staged or not, the video shows a massive hunk of American steel pulling like a hypersonic missile off the line, and it makes the world all the more eager in anticipation of a properly timed demonstration.

The Corvette is almost twice under the TRX's raw power, with 670 hp and 460 lb-ft from the 5.5-liter V8 with a flat-plane crankshaft architecture inspired by Ferrari. The Mammoth is also a V8, but it sports a supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI under the hood.

Based on the Mammoth 1000 version of the Hennessey-modified Dodge Ram 1500 TRX, the hypertruck can't hold a candle to the Corvette's power-to-weight ratio and massively superior aerodynamics. The Texas-based tuner hasn't revealed much about the latest—and last—TRX-based vehicles in its portfolio, but the company says it will be an extremely low-production series.

We'll wait and see what the truck is really up to and good for once it gets out in the open. After all, a 15-second standing quarter pass, as visually rich and dynamic as it can be, is not merely up to Hennessey's very ambitious standards.