Bespoke means many things.
To most luxury brands it is a specific shade of leather. Or maybe a monogram. For Hennessey it is an invitation to be absolutely unhinged.
I caught up with Nathan Malinick, the Director of Design, at Goodwood. We talked about his one-off “Maverick” division. He handles the stuff that doesn’t fit on the factory order form. I asked him about the strangest requests.
The answer wasn’t just expensive paint.
It involved real gold. A humidor. And a custom-fitted holster for a vintage pistol.
The Gold Mistake
Gold sounds elegant.
On paper yes. On an engine cover? It is a terrible idea.
A customer in Mexico ordered a Venom F5. He didn’t want gold leaf. He didn’t want chrome with a gold tint. He wanted real gold plating to replace standard metal parts. The vents on his engine cover were made of it.
“It was so complicated we won’t do it again,” Malinick told me. “You’re like ‘okay we could do gold’ and he’s like ‘no no I want gold.’ So the vents are actual gold.”
The problem?
Gold is soft.
Softer than almost any structural metal. You clean a piece of jewelry carefully. You clean a hypercar with aggressive chemicals and pressure. Bad things happen.
“Gold is very soft… if you go to clean it bad things happen,” Malinick explained. “So we will not do that again.”
Thankfully the Mexican buyer’s car is fine. Probably parked inside. Always inside. But it wasn’t the wildest request on the ledger.
Michael Jordan And The Texas Roots
In 2023 Hennessey built a special Venom F5 Revolution for Michael Jordan.
The basketball legend is a known cigar enthusiast. The design team wanted to “go over the top.” So they installed a custom humidor inside the glovebox. It keeps the cigars perfect while he drives a $4.7 million car.
Jordan didn’t even ask for it. They just did it because they could.
“Really wanted to go over the top.”
Then there are the Texas things.
Hennessey leans hard into its roots. Sometimes customers agree. In 2024 they built a holster directly into the interior of a vehicle for a vintage Colt 191011.
It fit “millimeter perfect.”
They also make key fobs shaped like guns. Because why not.
Spending Money For No Reason
$2.0 million doesn’t buy just transportation.
It buys attention. It buys chaos. Through the Maverick division Hennessey will build almost anything that is mechanically possible. A gold-plated car will break if you wash it. A gun in your dashboard might attract federal attention. But it stands out.
What is the wildest thing you would add to a hypercar?
Probably not real gold though. The cleaning bills alone would be catastrophic.
We’ll likely see more of these builds. Real gold won’t return. But the cigars and the concealed carry options?
Those stay. For now.
