Hennessey unveils 1,000 horsepower Cadillac 'Le Monstre', a tribute to a Le Mans icon from the 1950

Hennessey just unveiled the Cadillac Le Monstre, a 1,000hp tribute to a 1950s Cadillac that raced at Le Mans.

The modern Le Monstre actually looks nothing like the original.

But we’ll leave it up to you to decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

And there’s one more thing worth noting.

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A 1,000hp Cadillac

Hennessey, the American hypercar manufacturer behind the world’s most powerful internal combustion car and the 850hp Mustang GT, just unveiled a new track-focused beast called ‘Le Monstre’.

Inspired by the car of the same name from the 1950s, the Cadillac Le Monstre is based on a CT5-V Blackwing, but it’s a lot more powerful.

It puts out 1,000hp.

In a Cadillac.

As standard, the Blackwing comes with 668hp.

But, as Matthew McConaughey’s character in The Wolf of Wall Street would’ve put it, those ‘are rookie numbers’.

And so Hennessey decided to give it 1,000hp.

Then again, in the world that Hennessey inhabits, 1,000hp is standard. In fact, it’s almost underpowered.

The story behind the original Le Monstre

In the 1950s, Le Mans rules permitted rebodying of standard automobiles, basically with no caveats, ifs, ands, or buts.

Translated, automakers could do whatever they wanted, which means they often did.

Cadillac certainly thought so when they created this absurd-looking vehicle, which you can see below.

That’s actually the reason why this ‘thing’ was nicknamed Le Monstre, which is obviously French for ‘the monster’.

Amazingly, the car really was based on a street-legal vehicle, but this 1950s Cadillac was heavily modified to make it track-ready.

As a result, it could achieve a top speed of 130mph, which was mighty impressive in 1950.

This new ‘Le Monstre’ is a spiritual tribute to the original.

And we’ll leave it up to you to determine whether it looks better or worse.