First Hennessey Venom F5 To Hit the Auction Block Has 229 Miles, One Owner, and No Reserve

Only 24 of the Texas-spawned big brand slayers have been slated for production – and all of them were sold out long ago – and the company is just about to close the series, having built 22 so far. In the meantime, those with abyssal pockets and not-so-quick-draw reflexes who couldn’t get their hands on a brand-new example have just gotten their second chance.

One early-built Venom F5 is going under the hammer at Amelia Island, and there’s no minimal asking price for it. The auction house estimates the car at $1,200,000 - $1,650,000, which would be quite a bargain, in all honesty. Why, it’s almost a steal, given that the 229-mile coupe (368-km) came with a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $2,487,000 (including the options).

This car is the second in the batch of 24 that Hennessey has planned (the Texas House of Speed is opening orders for 2025 for the remaining two examples). As it happens, this Hennessey thoroughbred is also part of the Racer X collection, and a dozen lots will cross the block this weekend. The Venom F5 is in a very select company: Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport, Lamborghini Sian, McLaren Senna, ’66 Shelby Cobra 427, and ’63 Lincoln Continental Convertible – to name just some of the twelve.

The F5 is probably the tip of the American hypercar iceberg since no other make or model from the Detroit side of the Atlantic has dared to take on the big guns from Europe (Bugatti, Koenigsegg, McLaren come to mind first) in the tug-of-war game of high speed.

The car established a name for itself when it gave nightmares to everyone else in the high-speed business with its 271.6 mph (437 kph) test score achieved two years ago. Recently, John Hennessey announced his company’s plans to chase the 300-mph (484-kph) record in the Venom F5, with the declared goal of getting past 310.8 mph (500 kph) in one of the two runs required to homologate the achievement.

In theory, the car is aerodynamically and mechanically capable of hitting 328 mph (528 kph) – it just needs a long enough stretch of arrow-straight road or track on which to do it. I hardly doubt any of the owners of the F5 will ever get in the car and say, ‘I want to beat that speed record myself,’ but why anticipate?

After all, if somebody has $2.5 million to spare, I think they can work something out and find a suitable strip of tarmac on which to get the 6.6L Twin-Turbo ‘Fury’ V8 to its 8,500 RPM redline and crack the whip on all those 1,817 horses and 1,617 lb-ft (1,842 PS, 2,192 Nm). The car we're discussing will be auctioned on Friday, March 1.