Tag Archives: gtr

Ultima GTR

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2005 Ultima GTR

Offered by Iconic Auctioneers | Birmingham U.K. | November 11, 2023

Photo – Iconic Auctioneers

Ultima Sports was founded in 1983 by Lee Noble in England. Most of the cars they have produced since have been sold in component (kit) form. You buy the fiberglass body and tubular space frame chassis, then you go find a powerplant to stuff behind the driver.

The GTR was offered between 1999 and 2016, with cars sold in both kit form and as full turn-key cars constructed by the factory. This example is powered by a 6.3-liter Chevrolet V8 that apparently makes 600 horsepower. It’s also got a Porsche G50 transaxle. It’s a rocket ship.

In fact, a 720-horsepower GTR set many production car acceleration records. After 2016, the GTR was replaced by the Ultima Evolution. This car has an estimate of $43,000-$49,000. More info can be found here.

McLaren Senna GTR

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2020 McLaren Senna GTR

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | December 2021

Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions

The Senna is one of McLaren’s “Ultimate Series” cars and is the successor the the P1. It’s basically a track toy for the street, but to make sure you knew that it was intended for the street, McLaren released the track-only GTR variant in 2018 (though the production version would come two years later). Only 75 were to be made. This is car #28.

Power is from a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 rated at 814 horsepower in GTR spec. That’s 25 more than the base car. It’s got a racing gearbox, an adjustable dual-element rear wing, seating for two, and air conditioning. And there are shops that will apparently modify these into “road-legal” cars.

This auction has a few days left, but at the time of this writing, the bidding was already at $1.3 million. So the price is only going to go up. It must be that Gulf livery… Click here for more info.

Update: Sold $1,302,000.

Lamborghini Diablo GTR

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2000 Lamborghini Diablo GTR

Offered by Bonhams | Cheserex, Switzerland | June 20, 2021

Photo – Bonhams

The Diablo is the ultimate 90s supercar, and the model received a facelift in 1998 when the pop-up headlights were replaced. In 2000, the car also got a mechanical overhaul and some styling tweaks for the end-of-the-line Diablo 6.0.

But what we have here is a super rare track variant. Lamborghini sold 80 examples of the track-oriented Diablo GT road car between 1999 and 2000. Then they also built 40 GTR full-race variants. It was the last of a short line of Diablo race cars. It was basically a stripped GT with pneumatic air jacks, a big rear wing, and magnesium center-lock wheels.

The 6.0-liter V12 was also revised to produce 590 horsepower. The car was rear-wheel drive and featured a five-speed manual transmission. This is car #11 and it won the 2001 Lamborghini GTR Supertrophy series. It also competed in the 2003 French GT Championship. It’s now ready for some historic stuff, at a price of $890,000-$1,100,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold.

McLaren F1 GTR Road Car

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1996 McLaren F1 GTR Longtail

For Sale by Tom Hartley Jnr | Ashby-de-la-Zouch, U.K.

Photo – Tom Hartley Jnr

There was a time when anyone who could afford to do so could rush out and buy a McLaren F1. Now it’s kind of big news if one hits the market. After all, they only built 106 of them between road cars, race cars, and prototypes. The racing variant was the GTR, and 28 were built between 1995 and 1998. Their competition life lasted until 2005. They were that good.

What’s special about this car is that it was converted to a road car. Yes, the interior is a little sparse, but it does have the classic three-seat layout. That rear-mounted 6.0-liter BMW V12 is still there too.

This car is chassis #19R, and it was the first 1997-spec car (which technically makes it a prototype). The Longtails were only built in 1997, so this is one of 10. It was initially used as a development car, before shifting to the race track. It competed at the FIA GT race at Suzuka in 1997 before contending the 1999 JGTC season. It continued to race until 2002.

It was the first Longtail converted to a road car, which was actually done by Gordon Murray Design. It is being sold with the parts to return it to race specification, should the next owner want to. The asking price is not public, but you can be sure it’s well into the eight figures. Click here for more info.

P1 GTR

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2016 McLaren P1 GTR

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Villa Erba, Italy | May 27, 2017

Photo – RM Sotheby’s

Along with the LaFerrari and the Porsche 918, the McLaren P1 is among the three great supercars from the mid-2010s. Ferrari did a track version of their hypercar, and so did McLaren, with this “track-only” P1 GTR.

What sets it apart from the road car is the fact that it comes with its own track day series, among a multitude of performance options. They stripped some weight out of it and bumped the power. The electric-hybrid 3.8-liter twin-turbo V-8 makes a combined system output of 986 horsepower. There’s more grip, more outlandish aerodynamics, and even more speed.

McLaren opted to sell just 58 of these (offering them to existing P1 owners first). Of the 58 GTRs built, 27 were sent to Lanzante, a company in England who turns these track-only cars into street legal race cars. The fact that nearly half of the GTRs built are now street legal says, I think, that we may have reached the tipping point on performance track day specials. I’d bet most of the GTR owners don’t have anywhere near the talent required to squeeze even 75% of this car’s capability out on a track. So why not drive it on the street? It’s one of the rarest, flashiest cars ever built. It’s perfect for the billionaire who has everything else.

This is the first P1 GTR to come up for public auction. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

S/N #012.

Update: Not sold.

Ex-BMW Motorsport McLaren F1 GTR

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1997 McLaren F1 GTR Longtail

Offered by Gooding & Company | Scottsdale, Arizona | January 18, 2014

1997 McLaren F1 GTR Longtail

Photo – Gooding & Company

We’ve actually already featured a 1997 McLaren F1 GTR Longtail, so this is kind of awkward. What makes this car different? Well, for one, it is an ex-BMW Motorsport F1 GTR Longtail. Why is that distinction important? Because that was the closest approximation to a factory McLaren F1 race team.

The first F1 GTRs were built for 1995 and 1996 but the rules of racing changed for 1997. There were specialty-built prototype race cars backed by major manufacturers that came into the fold. Instead of building a race car around a road car (which is the case with the McLaren), companies built homologation specials of their race cars in order to make them “road-car-based.” The F1 had a slight handicap.

But it didn’t matter because Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and the like didn’t have Gordon Murray in their corner. The F1 was re-designed with an elongated nose and tail and a huge rear wing. The engine was a BMW Motorsport-sourced 6.0-liter V-12 detuned to make 604 horsepower (the road car made 627 with slightly larger displacement – that’s how incredible it really was).

This was BMW Motorsport car #1 (chassis #021R). It’s competition history includes:

  • 1997 FIA GT Hockenheim – 1st (with JJ Lehto and Steve Soper)
  • 1997 FIA GT British Empire Trophy at Silverstone – 3rd (with Lehto and Soper)
  • 1997 Helsinki 3 Hours – 1st (with Lehto and Soper)
  • 1997 Nürburgring 4 Hours – 3rd (with Lehto and Soper)
  • 1997 3 Hours Laguna Seca – 36th, DNF (with Lehto and Peter Kox)

And that was it for this car. After 1997, the F1 GTR program came to a halt. BMW traded this car to another McLaren team and the new owner loaned it to the Le Mans Museum for a little bit before selling it at the end of 2001. The new American owned had McLaren restore the car in 2002 to its original 1997 FINA racing colors.

In 2006, it was acquired by a German who actually used the car on track for the first time since 1997. Only 10 GTR Longtails were built (all in 1997) and this is as close to a factory race team example as there is. It was also the most successful BMW Motorsport Longtail with an impressive race history. Gooding & Company estimate that this car will bring between $5,000,000-$7,000,000 at auction in a few weeks. Click here for more info and here for more from Gooding in Scottsdale.

Update: Sold $5,280,000.

Gulf McLaren F1 GTR Longtail

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1997 McLaren F1 GTR Longtail

Offered by Bonhams | Carmel, California | August 17, 2012

If this doesn’t make you drool all over your keyboard, I don’t know what will. But seriously, if anyone out there would be kind enough to buy this car for me, I would be eternally grateful, as I have been really wanting one of these since I knew what they were. And I’m a sucker for anything painted in Gulf livery.

Where to start? I’m going to leave out the interesting tidbits about the McLaren F1 road car except that I will say that it was the greatest road car ever built (sorry, Volkswagen). Racing versions first appeared for the 1995 season, having to have been detuned from road-car spec to make it legal for certain racing series – including Le Mans, which it won in it’s debut season. Nine race chassis were built for 1995 (the GTR denotes a race chassis – some were converted to street legal versions after their racing lives had concluded and a number of GTR road cars exist today).

For 1996, nine more GTRs were built (with two additional 1995 cars upgraded). They had slightly different bodywork that was a little longer both front and rear to stay competitive. 1997 saw even more improvements and a move to the “Longtail” specification to compete against the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and Porsche 911 GT1. Ten Longtail cars were built with none of the previous cars being upgraded. This took the total to 28 cars. This was #28, the final GTR built.

Chassis 028R was originally 027R, but 027R was destroyed in a testing crash. When it was rebuilt, it was rebadged as 028R. The competition history of this car includes:

  • 1997 FIA GT Nürburgring 4 Hours – 44th, DNF (with Andrew Gilbert-Scott & Anders Olofsson)
  • 1997 FIA GT Spa 4 Hours – 44th, DNF (with Gilbert-Scott & Olofsson)
  • 1997 FIA GT Zeltweg 4 Hours – 30th, DNF (with Geoff Lees & Gilbert-Scott)
  • 1997 Suzuka 1000km – 6th (with John Nielsen, Lees & Gilbert-Scott)
  • 1997 FIA GT Donington Park 4 Hours – 7th (with Olofsson & Lees)
  • 1997 FIA GT Mugello 4 Hours – 8th (with Olofsson & Lees)
  • 1997 FIA GT Sebring 3 Hours – 10th (with Olofsson & Lees)
  • 1997 FIA GT Laguna Seca 3 Hours – 6th (with Olofsson & Lees)

Since the end of the 1997 season, this car was “preserved” at McLaren before being sold to someone in Japan in 2004 where it remained for two years. The current owner acquired it in 2006 but it hasn’t seen a track day since 1997. The engine, the 6.1-liter BMW V12 (which in this car has a somewhat neutered 600 horsepower) was last run in January – but McLaren has offered to do a full technical inspection free of charge once this sale is complete.

The McLaren F1 was a legend from day one and it continues to grow. These cars will do nothing but appreciate and by the time the kids – who had McLaren F1 posters on their walls in the 1990s – grow up and become financially successful (hopefully) adults in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, these cars will be worth untold fortunes. Road cars started at about $600,000-$900,000 back in the 90s and have sold for upwards of $4 million since 2008. I remember seeing them sitting on used-supercar dealer lots in the early 2000s. Times change fast. Bonhams wasn’t sporting enough to publish an estimate, so we’ll have to wait and see. For more info, click here. And for more from Bonhams in the amazing little town of Carmel, click here.

Update: Not sold.

S/N: 028R