Tag Archives: mclaren

McLaren F1

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1995 McLaren F1

Offered by Bonhams | Carmel, California | August 18, 2017

Photo – Bonhams

We’ll remind you that Bonhams holds the all-time Monterey Peninsula auction record (which is also the all-time auction record) for cars. This year they are giving it their all to bring in the most money on a single car – battling Gooding & Company who have a high-estimate-$16 million Porsche 917K. This car is the only other car (currently listed) that has a chance to beat that. Bonhams isn’t publicizing an estimate, but two years ago RM sold this F1 for over $13 million.

So what is it? It’s a McLaren F1 – the holy grail of supercars. The first car was delivered in 1992 – 25 years ago, which qualifies a ’92 for historic plates. The best part is this car still holds its own against every modern supercar, including McLaren’s own P1. And it does it with the basics. It’s simply the greatest.

Designed by Gordon Murray and Peter Stevens, the F1 was built by the newly-founded road car division of the McLaren Formula One Team. It’s a three seater – the driver is in the middle – and it has bufferfly doors. All modern supercars are either turbocharged, supercharged, or fitted with some crazy electric hybrid system to boost power. The F1 does it old school: it is powered by a naturally aspirated 6.1-liter BMW V-12 that makes 627 horsepower. For years after its introduction it was the fastest production car in the world with a top speed of 240 mph. It remains the fastest naturally aspirated car in the world.

There were different versions of the F1, including LM, GTR, and racecars. In total, 106 cars were built, 64 of which were road cars. This 1995 model was the first to be imported into the U.S. The F1 wasn’t quite road legal in base form, so a company called Ameritech swapped out some parts to make it fully federalized for U.S. road use. Only seven such cars were converted.

This chassis (#044) is all-original and is still in the possession of its first owner. McLaren F1s do not change hands often and they have gone way up in value in the last 10 years (I remember when they were selling for $700,000 in the late 1990s). A price of $10+ million is not out of the question for one of the greatest road cars ever built. This is an opportunity to acquire one of the best F1s in existence. You can read more here and see more from this sale here.

Update: Sold $15,620,000.

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.

McLaren M1B

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1966 McLaren-Chevrolet M1B

Offered by Bonhams | Goodwood, U.K. | June 24, 2016

Photo - Bonhams

Photo – Bonhams

McLaren has been around since 1963, having entered their first Formula One race in 1966. Today, the company is primarily known for their Formula One team and exotic sports cars. But back in the 1960s and 70s, they built sports prototype race cars for the Can-Am series. Cars like this M1B.

The first Can-Am season was 1966 and McLaren offered customer versions of this car, available with V-8 engines from Ford, Oldsmobile, or Chevrolet. This car carries the latter. It was sold to an American (and in the U.S., these were marketed as the McLaren-Elva Mark 2 as Elva built McLaren’s Group 7 customer cars).

The 1966 season highlight for this car was a 5th place finish at Laguna Seca with Masten Gregory at the wheel (he ran it the rest of the season as well but had a string of bad luck). As an historic race car, it has been used extensively by its current owner and is ready to run. Only 28 were sold in the U.S. and this one should bring between $350,000-$410,000. Click here for more info and here for more from Bonhams.

Update: Not sold.

McLaren P1

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2015 McLaren P1

Offered by Bonhams | Scottsdale, Arizona | January 28, 2016

Photo - Bonhams

Photo – Bonhams

The McLaren F1 has a legendary status in the automobile world. It was so good that McLaren took about 10 years off from road car production before returning with the “mid-market” (in supercar terms) MP4-12C. Then they tried to top themselves with this, the P1 – one of the most advanced cars ever built.

It’s a hybrid supercar. It uses a twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V-8 and an electric motor for a combined output of 903 horsepower. Just about everything you see is carbon fiber, so it weighs nothing. The sprint to 60 mph takes only 2.7 seconds and the top speed is 217 mph. Active aerodynamics keep it suckered to the ground.

The car went into production in October of 2013 for the 2014 model year and the last one was built in December 2015. Only 375 were made and this was #371 – the last U.S. market car produced. Sold new to a Florida collector via Chicago, this is an easy way to pick up one of these rare machines while they are still new and available. Supercars are often bought when they first come out, used and they quickly resold where they will sit in collections for years or decades. Get ’em while they’re hot. The price should be between $1,900,000-$2,200,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $2,090,000.

SLR Stirling Moss

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2009 Mercedes-Benz SLR Stirling Moss

Offered by Coys | London, U.K. | December 1, 2015

Photo - Coys

Photo – Coys

Few race car drivers (let alone people) define Mercedes-Benz to the degree that Sir Stirling Moss does. He is one of the greatest racing drivers the world has had the pleasure to see compete. Active in the golden era of motorsport, he was a Mercedes factory team driver in the 1950s. He raced the original 300 SLR in 1955.

So it was only fitting that when Mercedes-Benz introduced the SLR McLaren in 2003 that the series would culminate in a tribute to Sir Stirling. This version was built in 2009 only and only 75 examples were made – and they were initially sold only to current SLR McLaren owners. The car is a tribute to Moss’s very famous 300 SLR. There’s no windshield – just two small “deflectors” that really can’t do all that much. These were not available for street use in America and were not sold here.

The engine is a 5.4-liter supercharged V-8 making 641 horsepower. Top speed is a brisk 217 mph. This car is one of only four that were painted white. It’s an insanely rare version of an already rare car. The Stirling Moss SLR was the swan song for the model and it was off the market in 2010. I’ve never seen one of these come up for sale, which is probably why Coys is not providing a pre-sale estimate. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold.

McLaren F1 LM-Spec

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1998 McLaren F1 LM-Spec

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Monterey, California | August 13, 2015

Photo - RM Sotheby's

Photo – RM Sotheby’s

The McLaren F1 is the greatest supercar ever built. Period. It was the fastest car ever built for years after it was introduced (it is still the fastest naturally-aspirated road car ever built, nearly 25 years later) and it remains a singular achievement in the automobile world. They are so rare and unlike anything else built.

Only 64 F1 road cars were built out of a total of 106. Seven were prototypes. Two were GTs. 28 were GTRs. And five were LMs. This car is the second-to-last road car built but it has since been upgraded to LM specification. It is not one of the original LMs. The LM was the road-variant of the GTR Le Mans racers.

So McLaren has this program for people in the know (that is, McLaren owners) that allow them to bring their car to the factory to be customized (or upgraded) to suit their needs or desires. This F1 went back to the factory was given an LM-spec engine: a 6.1-liter aluminium V-12 making 680 horsepower. Only one other F1 road car has this engine. It also has some aero bits in the form of the Extra High Downforce Package which includes the front splitter, the rear wing and a few other details, including the wheels.

This car is currently owned by its second owner. These have become so hard to come by and this one has the race engine and the road manners. It will command a huge sum. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $13,750,000.

The First McLaren Road Car

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1969 McLaren M6GT Coupe

Offered by Bonhams | Francorchamps, Belgium | May 24, 2015

Photo - Bonhams

Photo – Bonhams

New Zealander Bruce McLaren founded the racing team that still bears his name to this day in 1963. McLaren was killed in 1970 in his own Can-Am car in a crash at Goodwood. Needless to say, his legacy is alive and well.

McLaren Can-Am cars were some of the best in the late-60s and early-70s. The M6A was their car for 1967. 1968 brought the M6B and for the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans, the company was developing a closed-coupe sports car called the M6GT. In order to race it in a sports car class, they had to build models for the road. The plan didn’t work out, and only three prototypes were completed – two of which were converted from M6B Can-Am cars, and one, which was a road car built from scratch. The first road car was sold to a customer in the U.S.

The two converted M6Bs were converted to road cars and Bruce McLaren used one as a daily driver. This is the other one. It was sold to a racer named David Prophet who actually raced it for a little while. It was restored in 1996 and is perfect for the road today. It uses a 5.0-liter Chevrolet V-8 making 370 horsepower. It’s as sleek as a race car and can do 180 mph. While it may look like a kit car or something, this is a legitimate McLaren road car – the grandfather of the F1. It should sell for between $210,000-$260,000.  Click here for more info and here for more from Bonhams.

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.

Final Highlights from Monterey 2013

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Two auctions left to cover. First, Gooding’s Pebble Beach sale put up some big numbers. Frankly, I’m really bored with million dollar Ferraris. And Mercedes Gullwings don’t do anything for me. Instead of listing the 30 (yes, that’s right) cars that hit the million dollar mark, I’ll just show what’s interesting. I will, however, show you the top sale, which was this 1957 Ferrari 250 GT 14-Louver Berlinetta for $9,460,000.

1957 Ferrari 250 GT 14-Louver Berlinetta

The next two highest selling cars were pretty interesting. First, this 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante went for $8,745,000.

1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante

And then this. This result actually made me shout an expletive when I saw it. It’s a 1997 McLaren F1. A year or two ago, one sold for $2 million, which was way more than any other F1 before it. I remember 10+ years ago when these things were at exotic car dealerships around the country with a price tag of $800,000. This one sold for an astounding $8,470,000. This is a big deal. These cars will never be attainable ever again for mere millionaires. They have proven to be exquisitely collectible.

1997 McLaren F1

Feature cars! The Hispano-Suiza J12 was withdrawn from the sale. A previously featured and early Duesenberg Model J brought $2,365,000. The Ferrari F40 LM brought $2,090,000. Two other Ferraris failed to reach their reserves: the Ferrari FXX and the Ferrari 400 Superamerica. Cool cars? How about this ex-Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello Grand Prix-winning 2002 Ferrari F2002? It sold for $2,255,000.

2002 Ferrari F2002

I really like this pre-Jaguar 1932 SS1 Coupe for $154,000.

1932 SS1 Coupe

Other feature cars sold: the Gurney-Weslake AAR Eagle brought $3,740,000. The Voisin C25 sold for $1,925,000. Gooding & Company, like RM Auctions, also sold a Ferrari N.A.R.T. Spider. This one happened to be a 365 GTB though, and “only” brought $720,000.

This huge 1914 Packard 1-38 Five-Passenger Phaeton was one of my favorite cars of the entire sale. It sold for a healthy $467,500.

1914 Packard 1-38 Five Passenger Phaeton

This ex-Harrah Collection 1915 Cretors Model C Popcorn Wagon was the first car cut from my “to be featured” list when time ran out. It sold for $374,500 – almost $100,000 more than the top end of its pre-sale estimate.

1915 Cretors Model C Popcorn Wagon

This 1948 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Competizione was one of the stars of the show. It was hammered away for $4,840,000. It’s the only one like it left.

1948 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Competizione

And finally, I thought this 1929 Bentley Speed Six Grafton Coupe by Freestone & Webb looked pretty sporty. But the price was a little too-sporting for my wallet: $2,860,000.

1929 Bentley Speed Six Grafton Coupe

Check out full results here.

And last but not least, Russo & Steele’s Monterey sale. Our featured Bizzarrini Prototype sold for $77,000. The top sale was this 1949 Ferrari 166 Inter Berlinetta by Stabilimenti Farina for $1,050,500.

1949 Ferrari 166 Inter Berlinetta by Satbilimenti Farina

Interesting cars were topped off by this 1935 REO Speed-Wagon Model 6AP Pickup. It sold for $110,000. Check out full results here.

1935 REO Speed-Wagon Model 6AP Pickup

The 1974 Indianapolis 500 Winner

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1974 McLaren M16C

Offered by RM Auctions | Monterey, California | August 16-17, 2013

1974 McLaren M16C

I guess I can get right to it: the competition history for this car includes:

  • 1973 Indianapolis 500 – 9th (with Johnny Rutherford)
  • 1974 Indianapolis 500 – 1st (with Rutherford)
  • 1974 Milwaukee 150 – 1st (with Rutherford)
  • 1974 Pocono 500 – 1st (with Rutherford)
  • 1974 Michigan 500 – 4th (with Rutherford)
  • 1974 Trenton 300 Race 1 – 4th (with Rutherford)
  • 1974 Trenton 300 Race 2 – 7th (with Rutherford)
  • 1974 Phoenix – 7th (with Rutherford)

As I think you’ll agree, only that second line really matters. It makes this car huge. Only a handful of Indianapolis 500 winning race cars are in private hands (that won prior to 1996). Rutherford started 25th, battled with A.J. Foyt for 50 laps and then took off, lapping every car on track with the exception of second place Bobby Unser – who finished 22 seconds behind J.R. That’s a beast of a race car and driver.

The M16C was introduced in 1973. This was a McLaren-factory car campaigned for the entire USAC season with Rutherford behind the wheel (Peter Revson was his teammate). This car won the pole at Indy in ’73. It was slightly redesigned for ’74 and Rutherford had to wait until Bump Day to make the field. This car was sold by McLaren to a privateer team, who failed to qualify for the 500 with it in 1977 and 1978.

When it was restored later on, the car was reverted to as it was in victory lane in 1974. It changed hands for a record price in 1991 and has been used (by Rutherford) at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The engine is a 2.6-liter turbocharged Offenhauser straight-four making 800 horsepower. That’s more than current Indy cars. At any rate, it’s rare that a 500 winner can be bought. This one should sell for between $1,250,000-$1,750,000. Click here for more info and here for more from RM in Monterey.

Update: Sold $3,520,000.

S/N: M16C-5