The McLaren F1 LM Specification offered by RM Sotheby’s this weekend at its Monterey Car Week auction smashed records as expected. The eventual hammer price fell slightly short of $20 million but commanded a new record price of $19,805,000.
The hammer price represents a new record for a McLaren at auction although it falls short of the overall record for a British car. That remains with the Aston Martin DBR1 RM Sotheby’s sold in 2017.
What made this particular McLaren so special was it’s one of two status. After the original production run of “standard” F1 road cars was complete, McLaren upgraded two normal road cars to LM specifications.
Of course, the LM Specification is not unique to these two cars. Five ‘true’ LM’s were built to honour the five McLaren F1 GTRs that competed and finished the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. Those cars are unlikely to cross the auction block any time soon. Three are languishing in the collection of the Sultan of Brunei, one was retained by McLaren and the other two are in private collections in the US.
The second LM Specification car was sold a few years ago at the bargain price of $13,750,000. These cars feature a large rear wing, enlarged front splitter and louvres on the front clamshell as well as an engine, rebuilt to LM spec which revs 1,000 rpm higher than the standard V12 and develops 680bhp.
