Evaluation: Original | Showing 54,010 believable kilometers (33,560 miles). Light wear to the seats but mostly good interior. Very old tires. Mostly good original paint, but there are some chips on the mirrors and around the side intakes, plus some light scratches below the doors. Lightly scratched aluminum fuel-filler cap. A very rare, very cool French supercar that has been driven but remains reasonably well kept.
Bottom Line: Venturi looked to be a serious contender in the supercar business for a while, with attractive and fast wedge-shaped exotics on offer, starts at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a one-make race series called the “Venturi Gentleman Drivers Trophy.” In the end, though, Venturi in France went the way of Vector here in the States, only building a few dozen cars before going bust. Arguably the best Venturi is the 400 GT, the first-ever production car to come standard with carbon-ceramic brakes. The engine is also the old Peugeot-Renault-Volvo (PRV) V-6 that pushed along the DeLorean, but it’s extensively breathed on and strapped with two turbos. It’s cool, rare, and fast, but it’s also obscure. This reported high bid wasn’t far off from Artcurial’s presale estimate and well over the €132,250 brought by another 400 GT that RM sold here a year ago.
