Thrill seekers who desire to go faster than the average car can take them and have a few extra million dollars lying around find themselves in hot pursuit of so-called hypercars.
These are defined as vehicles which can attain speeds of at least 217 miles per hour while going from zero to 60 in less than three seconds. So rare, they’re manufactured by companies the average person has never heard of – such as Sweden-based Koenigsegg or Texas’ Hennessy – and are meticulously produced in ultra-limited quantities for the super rich.
Built for speed, so sweetly designed that the best models resemble art on wheels and the ultimate in racy status symbols, for those who can afford the splurges, hypercars are hype.
Here’s the skinny on hyper-rich guys and their high-performance toys.
Michael Jordan
The man who once drove to the basket is now driving one of the world’s highest performing cars. Made in Texas and designed to break speed records, his Hennessey Venom F5 Roadster was delivered to the basketball great in 2023.
As for how Jordan, worth $3.5 billion, reacted to receiving his $3 million car with an alleged ability to hit 300 miles per hour, an insider told The Post, “He was blown away. Nothing is as intense and fully engaging as this car. Some hypercars are built for luxury, but the Hennessey is out and out power and performance.”
The cars are built by John Hennessey, a former race car driver, who previously told The Post he’d only made 45 of them between 2013 and 2020, adding the cars “are so exclusive, [purchasers] are also buying pieces of history.”
Dr. Larry Kaplin
If bragging rights are part of the motivation for owning a multimillion-dollar car, then the $2 million SSC Tuatara delivers. Made in Washington and designed by Jason Castriota, the 1,750 horsepower vehicle is the world’s fastest production vehicle on earth. It broke the two-way land-speed record for a production car by going 283 miles per hour at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Kaplin, founder of DOCS Health and worth $22.5 million, was behind the wheel himself.
“I’ve spent quite a bit of time going 250 miles per hour,” he told The Post. “But going 295 is much different; 250 feels like a warmup. You’re stretching the limits and need to be completely focused. You’re very in tune with every sound of the car, every reaction of the car, every movement of the wind. If you’re not, you will get in trouble.”
The Tuatara is named for a New Zealand species of reptile that has three eyes and achieves its speed via a super-powerful engine and an aerodynamic design that came from the aerospace industry.
Sam Altman
If Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, wanted to keep a low profile about his wealth, tooling around California’s Napa Valley in a white Koenigsegg Regera is no way to do it. That’s exactly where the $1.2 billion tech exec was spotted. “People are really attracted to the technology and the fact that Koenigsegg makes all of its own components,” Francesco Zappacosta, CEO of ISSIMI, an exotic car dealer in Northern California, told The Post. “The company pushes the envelope, providing new solutions and novel approaches.”
Koenigsegg launched in 1994, helmed by Christian von Koenigsegg who was obsessed with building the world’s greatest sports car. The Regera, which ceased production in 2022, is designed for comfort and speed. As if a $2 million-plus car is not already special enough, buyers can always opt for the KNC finish, and ultra-light material known as Koenigsegg Naked Carbon, which trims the car’s weight and amps up its speed — for an extra $400,000.
Eddy Cue
Cars can be tricky things in Silicon Valley. Tech execs have told The Post they don’t drive their priciest to the office, so they’re not seen to be showing off, perhaps taking a hint from Mark Zuckerberg, often seen behind the wheel of a $30,000 Acura. Eddy Cue, senior vice president of services at Apple, takes a different approach. A developer who saw his collection of autos stated, “I calculated how much he spent on cars but stopped counting when I got to ‘obscene.’”
Believed to rank among the coveted cars owned by Cue, who is worth $200 million: The Pagani Zonda Cinque. Only five were built, with its own color and they currently sell in the $12 million range. “The Cinque was born out of a special edition at the request of a Pagani dealer in Hong Kong,” said Zappacosta. That Pagani merchant apparently put in his request to the company for the car to be “the most extreme road-legal Zonda ever created.”
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
When you are a boxer whose nickname is “Money,” nobody can begrudge you a world class car collection. The rarest he ever owned is a $4.8 million Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita, one of only two manufactured. Mayweather, worth $1.2 billion, sold his at auction for a bargain basement price of $2.6 million. Most audaciously, he once drove the coveted ride to fast food joint Fatburger in Las Vegas.
The car, with 1,000 horsepower, can go from zero to 62 miles per hour in just 2.9 seconds. It has the same horsepower as the better known Bugatti but is only half the weight — despite trunk space large enough to fit a bag of golf clubs. The carbon fiber exterior is specially prepped with diamonds in order to give the silver color a sparkly finish. Initially, the cars were supposed to be made in an edition of three – the name translates to “three whites” – but the production proved so arduous only two models made it to the streets.
