Zak Brown, Paul Lanzante, and Tony Willis discuss the provenance, rarity, and ever-evolving legacy of the McLaren F1.
For nearly thirty years, the McLaren F1 has remained the fastest ever naturally aspirated car and has earned its status as an automotive legend. Born of a company steeped in motorsport pedigree yet one which had never built a production road car, the F1 was designed to be the greatest road-going automobile ever built, regardless of cost.
Through relentless attention to detail and revolutionary design processes, McLaren created a technological tour de force and the F1 truly took the industry by storm. Not only would it achieve all of the lofty goals set by its manufacturers, McLaren went one step further and somewhat reluctantly took the car racing, only for it to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright in 1995, the car’s first outing at the fabled event. This was a truly astonishing accomplishment when considering that the F1 was never designed with racing in mind. It would have been entirely possible to drive the McLaren F1 from the UK to Le Mans, race, win the race overall, and then drive the car home. In modern motorsport, such a feat will never be possible again.
Many argue that McLaren’s F1 is the greatest car of the 20th century, a bold claim but a justifiable one considering this car’s impact on the industry and its success in motorsport. With changing demographics in the collector car industry, the McLaren F1 is arguably on a path toward the vaunted heights of other iconic cars such as Ferrari’s 250 GTO and Alfa’s 8C 2900 in terms of desirability and value. When considered together, these three cars are a trifecta with each representing, within its own generation, the very best of design and performance. The 8C 2900 and 250 GTO have sat at the very pinnacle of collecting for decades, and the McLaren F1 can be considered worthy of inclusion within this exclusive club, making them the ‘Big Three’, with ownership of all three signifying their respective owner as one of the world’s top car collectors.
As the automotive industry marches towards electrification, the F1 will be seen as a watershed moment in the history of the performance automobile, and an automobile that many designers and engineers have looked to for inspiration ever since its introduction. Elon Musk once tweeted: "when my 1st company got bought, I had to decide between buying a house in Palo Alto or a McLaren F1 (best car ever imo). Was no contest. I bought F1 & a small condo that was much cheaper than the car. New Tesla Roadster will exceed all gas sports cars in every way…”. Even though the new Tesla Roadster has yet to enter production, it’s clear that his F1 would have had a profound effect on Musk, and therefore Tesla.
At the time, the McLaren F1’s technical innovations were nothing short of mesmerizing, and most remain as mainstays in the supercars and hypercars produced today. The McLaren F1 was the first car built with active aerodynamics, gold to reflect heat in the engine bay, and a modem system so the car could communicate with technicians back at the factory to diagnose any problems remotely.
No detail was considered unimportant, from the hand-drawn and inscribed owner’s manuals bespoke for each car, the six-disc CD player custom-designed by Kenwood to be the smallest and lightest unit of its kind, and featherlight Falcom tool kit, every aspect of the car was carefully considered. At a list price of £634,500 upon its unveiling (over $1,000,000), this was the most expensive new car ever built. Delve into the details and in the opinion of all those who were lucky enough to purchase an F1 new, the cost was justified.
Students of motorsport history will be keenly aware of the auspicious nature of this car’s chassis number, 059, as it shares that number with the race number of the F1 that took overall victory at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, further affirming the F1’s significance in automotive history. With this car having been completed and delivered in April 1998 as the 97th McLaren F1 built (making it among the very last), this fact would not have been lost on its first owner, who was no stranger to McLaren and the F1.
Today, of the 106 F1s built, multiple F1s reside alongside one (or more) of their peers in large collections, making the true number of current F1 owners far fewer than 100, as illustrated in this example’s ownership history. Acquiring this F1 would allow one to join that exclusive club of owners and drivers, achieving something that millions of enthusiasts can only dream of but few, perhaps only a few hundred people, have ever achieved.
Having not been seen publicly for the last decade in its current ownership, this represents a remarkable opportunity to acquire a unique and significant F1.
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