Real gold. A humidor for a two-million-dollar hypercar. A holster fitted around a vintage revolver, millimeter perfect. Welcome to Hennessey's world of Venom F5 customers who think a paint code is beneath them.
Hennessey Design Director Nathan Malinick told Motor1 about the strangest requests the company has ever fielded on the Venom F5. One client from Mexico didn’t want gold accents or gold leaf — he wanted real gold in place of the metal. “He said: ‘No, no, I want gold’… So the vents on his engine cover are actual gold,” Malinick recalled.
Hennessey isn’t doing that again. It’s not about cost, it’s about physics: gold is simply too soft. “If you go to clean a real piece of gold, bad things happen. So we will not do that again,” the designer admitted.
Then there’s the Venom F5 built for Michael Jordan. In 2023 the basketball legend and cigar enthusiast got a humidor built into his glovebox. It wasn’t Jordan’s own request — the Hennessey team simply decided to go over the top on that particular build.
Texas has its own flavor of excess, too. In 2024 Hennessey fitted one car with a dedicated mount for a customer’s vintage Colt 1911. According to Malinick, the pistol fits into the compartment “millimeter perfect.” For anyone who wants to go further, there’s even a gun-shaped ignition key.
To an outsider, all of this looks absurd. But in the world of the Venom F5, absurdity is the product. Horsepower, carbon fiber and a sub-two-second sprint stopped being unique the moment the guy in the next garage had the same numbers. That’s exactly why Hennessey has already opened its Maverick division — dedicated to one-off builds, from special finishes to far deeper mechanical and body reworks.
Set against Ferrari Tailor Made, Porsche Sonderwunsch, Bentley Mulliner and Aston Martin Q, this isn’t a whim — it’s a calculated business model. The richer the client, the less they want the “top trim,” and the more they want a story to tell at dinner.
Hennessey, it seems, is ready for almost anything. Gold, though, is better left in the safe — not bolted to the engine cover.
