While half the world was busy burying the manual gearbox, Hennessey dug it back up — and put 2031 horsepower in the palm of your hand. Ahead of its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Texans pulled the covers off the first customer Venom F5-M Roadster. This isn’t just another take on an American hypercar. It’s a pointed challenge to the era of automatics, hybrids and drive modes: every last bit of power heads to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual with an open gate.
At its heart sits a 6.6-liter twin-turbo V8 called Fury. 2031 hp at 8000 rpm and 1959 Nm at 5200 rpm — numbers that send a chill down your spine. Hennessey also retuned the traction control and engine management so the delivery stays more linear in every gear. And that’s no press-release fluff: on a rear-drive car with this much muscle, smoothness is a survival question — for the transmission, the tires and the driver.
Just twelve of these will ever exist. No more. The first went to a British collector, and the spec sheet reads like a private exhibition. Almost the entire body is exposed carbon with a purple tint; the center of the hood, the roof and the engine cover stay in classic black weave. Gold wheels, silver pinstripes and a 24-karat gold badge on the nose push it closer to Pagani-grade personalization than to a plain track weapon.
The owner’s surname — Sheikh — appears on the tail and inside the cabin. Purple and standard carbon sit alongside white leather, gold accents fall on the shifter and the vents, and even the seats get carbon shells in the same purple hue. A 1400-millimeter fin runs from the roof to the rear: it keeps the car planted beyond 320 km/h and wears hand-painted US and UK flags on its sides. Fitting, really — an American engine, a British owner.
Pricing for the Venom F5-M starts at 2.65 million dollars. With all the bespoke carbon, gold and personal touches, the first car has almost certainly sailed past 3 million dollars. At Goodwood it will be driven by Alex Brundle, storming up the hill eight times across the four days of the festival.
But the real story here isn’t about records. Hennessey is selling a combination almost nobody dares to build anymore: an open hypercar, a huge V8, rear-wheel drive and a manual box. Bugatti, Koenigsegg and Rimac have disappeared into fiendish engineering and electrification — while the Venom F5-M plays a different game entirely. The one where the owner doesn’t just want to go fast, but to feel every gear with his own hand.
