Amazing Things Happen When Texans Get Their Hands On Ferraris

Ferrari's history of style, horsepower, and speed is legendary.

For the better part of the past century, Ferrari has produced some of the greatest high-performance exotic cars available for purchase. As a result, few Ferrari drivers will ever find themselves wanting. That is, unless they work in Texas for Hennessey Performance, a company that specializes in taking fast machines and making them...crazy fast.

If 500-plus hp and a 200 mph top speed just doesn't do it for you, Hennessey can bring some extra Texas-sized fun to the party.

Last year, the company gave a dazzling Ferrari 458 Spider the "Hennessey treatment." They started with a car that has 570 hp and does 0-60 in 3.4 second. A pair of twin turbos later, the Spider could crank out 738 hp and deliver 0-60 mph in a mere 2.8 seconds.

Now the Houston-based company is back, this time souping up a Ferrari 430 Scuderia, a car that the Magicians of Maranello produced until 2009, when the 458 was introduced.

The Scuderia is one of the most potent track cars ever to emerge from legendary the Ferrari factory. With a top speed of 198 miles per hour and a 0-60mph time of just 3.6 seconds, the stock version will blow the doors off of just about anything in the supercar realm. With twin turbos added by Hennessy, the Scuderia - it's named for Ferrari's racing arm, by the way - can produce 200 more horses. It can also serve up an intoxicating turbocharger whine (not that there was anything wrong with the music emanating from the V8 that Hennessy started with).

Hennessy rose to prominence over the past couple of decades by extracting insane amounts of horsepower and speed from already potent American muscle cars. The firm's past accomplishments include a 1,100hp Dodge Viper, dubbed the "Hennessey Venom 1000 Twin Turbo" (easily one of the best names in automotive history), and a 1,200hp Cadillac CTS-V wagon with a top speed of - 242 mph!

Earlier this year, Hennessey's Venom GT hypercar took the title of World's Fastest Car away from the Bugatti's multi-million dollar Veyron by turning a top-speed run of 270 mph. Never content to rest on its laurels, the company is planning to challenge the 300mph mark in the near future.

As for the cost of the Hennessey upgrades, they aren't cheap. the company's founder and namesake, John Hennessey, says that packages can run more than $60,000. And that's after you've already dropped $300,000 on the Ferrari.