Hennessey Christmas Tree Run Hits 196 MPH in Corvette ZR1
Hennessey, the Texas-based hypercar manufacturer and high-performance vehicle specialist, has set a new festive benchmark by taking a 5½-foot (1.7-metre) Christmas tree to 196 mph on the roof of the latest 2026 Chevrolet C8 Corvette ZR1. The team ran the record attempt on the runway at Chase Field in Beeville, Texas, and Hennessey says it now holds the fastest speed achieved by a road-legal car carrying a Christmas tree.
Hennessey fitted the ZR1 with a roof-mounted tree wrapped in more than 200 festive lights and holiday ribbon, then pushed the car to the edge of 200 mph. The company has now completed seven Christmas Tree Runs, and professional driver Spencer Geswein has piloted three of them. This year’s top speed beats Hennessey’s previous 192 mph mark from 2022, when the team ran a Hennessey Venom 1000 Ford Mustang.
Alex Roys, Hennessey President: “Hennessey’s Christmas Tree Run has evolved from a crazy little holiday stunt into one of the most fun traditions. Every year, we strap a tree to something a little wilder and a little faster. It’s the kind of event that reminds you why this whole thing started… because cars should be loud, fun, and just a little bit unhinged. Running the 2026 Corvette ZR1 was a perfect finale to another amazing year for the Hennessey team.”
This year’s Christmas Tree Run put the spotlight on the 2026 Corvette ZR1, a headline-grabbing performance car from Chevrolet. Chevrolet powers its flagship model with a twin-turbocharged 5.5-litre flat-plane crank V8 that delivers 1,064 hp and 828 lb-ft of torque, giving the C8 Corvette ZR1 the pace to chase record-breaking top speed runs.
Geswein, well known for high-speed testing and previous Hennessey runs, delivered another clean pass, stopping just short of 200 mph with the tree in place. He had already driven the Venom 1000 Mustang GT500 to 192 mph in 2022, and he has also piloted the 1,817 bhp Venom F5 to more than 270 mph during 2022 testing. The Hennessey team also ran the fully optioned C8 ZR1 with the ZTK track pack, minus the Christmas tree, and reached 206 mph before the runway ran out.
Hennessey has turned the Christmas Tree Run into a year-end tradition that blends supercar spectacle with measurable speed records. The series started in 2017, when Hennessey took a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Widebody to 174 mph with a tree on the roof. The team then raised the pace to 181 mph in 2019 with a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk (HPE1000), followed by 182 mph in 2020 with a Ford Shelby GT500 Mustang and 183 mph in 2021 with an Audi RS6 Avant tuned by Hennessey to 800 hp. In 2022, Hennessey clocked 175 mph with a Porsche 911 Turbo S, then reset the benchmark later that year at 192 mph with the Venom 1000 Mustang. The latest 196 mph run in the Chevrolet C8 Corvette ZR1 now tops the Christmas tree top speed chart.
