When you already build some of the world’s most exclusive hypercars, “bespoke” can mean a lot of things. For Hennessey, that means more than just special colors, custom badges, and interior materials; customers want some truly ridiculous upgrades on their vehicles.
Speaking with Hennessey Director of Design Nathan Malinick in Goodwood about the company’s one-off Maverick division, I asked him what the strangest requests the company has ever received.
His answer? Things like real gold, built-in humidors, and yes, even custom-fitted firearm storage.
Photo by: Hennessey Performance
Malinick tells me that one Venom F5 customer in Mexico wanted gold on his vehicle. Not gold leaf or gold accents—real gold in place of metal. Not the easiest thing to pull off, but Hennessey did it nonetheless.
‘It’s funny. We did a car for a Mexican client—we won’t do this again because it was so complicated—but he wanted metal to be gold. You’re like, ‘Okay, we could do gold.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, I want gold’… So the vents on his engine cover are actual gold.’
Naturally, there’s a reason real gold isn’t a common fixture on high-end vehicles (and something Hennessey won’t do again). As Malinick explains:
‘Gold is very soft… If you go to clean a real piece of gold, bad things happen. So we will not do that again.’
Thankfully, Malinick said the company hasn’t heard of any issues from that customer’s car. But that might not even be the wildest thing Hennessey has ever done to a vehicle.
Hennessey Venom F5 Revolution With Real Gold Accents
Photo by: Hennessey Special Vehicles
In 2023, Hennessey built a one-off Venom F5 for basketball legend—and cigar enthusiast—Michael Jordan, complete with a humidor in the glovebox. Malinick says it wasn’t requested by Jordan himself, but that the design team “really wanted to go over the top” for this build.
Hennessy also leans hard into its Texas roots, which means sometimes customers request things like, say, custom firearm storage. In 2024, the company fitted a car with a special holster for a customer’s vintage Colt 1911 pistol that, according to Malinick, fit “millimeter perfect” inside the vehicle. (You can also get a key shaped like a gun.)
Sure, those might seem like silly requests to the average person, but when you’re spending north of $2.0 million on a vehicle, you definitely want something that stands out. And through Hennessey’s new Maverick one-off division, things like that are entirely possible.
Just don’t ask for real gold.
Source: Hennessey Special Vehicles
Motor1’s Take: It’s really not all that surprising to learn that Hennessey customers want some truly outrageous things in their vehicles. Real gold, humidors, and gun holsters probably aren’t the last we’ll see from Hennessey customers.
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