It won’t be long before we see a McLaren F1 in the actual Concours proper, judging by the way that the their values have been rising! Still, we didn’t spot this McLaren F1 on the lawn, rather, we spotted it in McLaren’s private tent. Its a stunning red example, we believe it is chassis number 28, built by special order of a US customer.
The McLaren F1 features a 6.1 litre BMW V12 engine with 618 bhp. As the car featured advanced carbon fibre body panels and a carbon fibre monocoque, Gordon Murray decided that heat shielding was necessary, hence the engine bay is lined with a distinctive gold foil. The McLaren F1 managed a zero-100 km/h sprint of just 3.2 seconds along with a Guiness World Record varified 243 mph (391 km/h) top speed.
Its appearance at Pebble Beach was overshadowed somewhat by the record breaking example sold by Gooding & Company for $8.47 Million. However, it was fantastic to see it alongside more modern McLaren machinery. More of that a little later on…
Thx for beautiful pictures! <3 Bonjour de France ;).
This is chassis 028, originally built for Michael Andretti as part of his Formula One compensation when he raced for McLaren briefly in 1993. At the time it was built there was no means to import it to the USA so it stayed in England and was sold to a Japanese collector after about 9 months. It finally came to the USA in 2003 once the laws allowed for that and has three owners since then.