I think he has gotten such a bad reputation in the past that he is now trying to change that. I do not know that for sure, but sometimes I read
about somebody getting charged too much or the job was not completed or had problems and others talk about how he went out of his way to help them.

Sounds like a Mr Jekyll and Mr Hyde syndrome.

You have to meet and exceed customers expectations with all customers not just some of them.

Here is an excerpt from an article from Car and Driver 2003:

Hennessey's company has gone though a rough stretch the past few years. Some angry customers accused the Houston tuner of taking their money without delivering cars in a reasonable amount of time. (Editor-in-chief Csaba Csere delved into the matter, and his findings were reported in The Steering Column in September 2002.) Hennessey conceded he'd had problems.

Now he's regrouped, and after 10 years of modifying Vipers, he's downsized and restructured his company (now called Hennessey Performance Engineering), reducing employees from 15 to four.


Here is an excerpt from the September 2002 Car and Driver article mentioned above:

Supercars Can Bite as Hard as They Can Run. - Columns
The Steering Column
BY CSABA CSERE, September 2002



1 | 2


Our second Supercar Challenge begins on page 42 of this issue. We spent two days at Michigan International Speedway flogging 15 machines from the top U.S. purveyors of performance. We not only evaluated the cars' performance but also reported their reliability and the comfort and refinement they offer in street driving.

So, if you have a burning desire to own one of these rockets, you simply write a check to the speed merchant of your choice, and a few months later you're driving a supercar, right? Well, that part of the ride can get a bit rough once in a while.
For example, in April 2001, according to a detailed Internet posting, one eager buyer sent his Dodge Viper GTS, with a check for $122,500, to Hennessey Motorsports in Houston. The check was for converting his stock Viper into a Hennessey Venom 800 Twin Turbo, and it was supposed to be delivered in 12 weeks. Later, the buyer sent an additional $20,000 to pay for a further horsepower boost to 1000. But the owner didn't get the car back in 12 weeks. In fact, some 10 months later, in February 2002, no work had been done on the car—and worse, according to the buyer, several parts had been removed from his stock Viper and sold off! This owner has since filed a lawsuit against Hennessey seeking the return of his car, his $142,500, and the usual "punitive damages."

Another customer with a long-overdue Venom says he went armed with a video camera to confront John Hennessey at his Houston shop. Hennessey reportedly had the customer arrested for making "terroristic threats."
There is, of course, no place in the world where talk is cheaper than on an Internet message board, and a few lurid posts hardly constitute proof of wrongdoing. So I went to the Web site of the Houston Better Business Bureau (www. bbbhou.org) and searched for Hennessey Motorsports. The BBB reported 12 complaints filed against Hennessey in the past 36 months, of which seven were in the past year. Of the 12 complaints, only one was listed as resolved. To put this performance in context, I ran checks with the local BBBs of every participant in our Supercar Challenge. Just one other complaint turned up, against AutoThority, and it was described as "resolved."

Then I went to Dun & Bradstreet, the financial research firm, where for $117 I purchased a comprehensive report on Hennessey Motorsports. For comparison, I also purchased a report on the well-known Lingenfelter Performance Engineering. The report indicated that LPE was financially sound, with no liens, lawsuits, or judgments pending against it. [b]In contrast, the Hennessey report revealed that courts have four times ruled against the company and