The poor Nissan GT-R can’t get no love from the folks over at Hennessey Performance Engineering. These gearheads are always pitting the unfortunate, 480 horsepower Japanese giant against their hopped-up station wagons and full-size sedans. It just ain’t fair to match up an all-wheel drive, twin-turbo Nissan coupe against a 600 horsepower station wagon. Of course, they also embarrassed a turbo Porsche with the same wagon, so Godzilla shouldn’t feel too bad.
Now Hennessey is at it again, only this time the Nissan should stand a chance. After all, what sports car worth its $80,000 price tag would be beat by a 6,000 pound Escalade?
But this is Hennessey, and this isn’t just any Escalade. Those excellent engineers and mechanics have replaced the Escalade’s stock V8 with an LSX engine, and thrown every tuning trick in the book at it. Twin turbochargers, air-to-air intercooler, upgraded internals, custom tune, bigger intake and exhaust – you name it, this Escalade probably has it. All told, the engine is good for about 1,000 horsepower, which motivates all three tons of this object of excess to a 0-60 mph time of 3.3 seconds. Now that’s merging power! The quarter-mile flies by in just over 11 seconds at 124 mph. This ain’t your momma’s grocery getter.
So how does this six-thousand pound gorilla face off against Japan’s Godzilla? Surprisingly well. In fact (spoiler alert) in a three-honk street race, the Escalade managed to beat the GT-R by about a car length. While we’d like to see a rematch at the drag strip, even with a 2,000 pound weight advantage, the GT-R’s 480 horsepower just doesn’t seem like enough to keep up with the mighty 1,000 horsepower Escalade.