McLaren F1 sells for what could be new record
 

A McLaren F1 that use to belong to Michael Andretti could have set the record for highest price paid for modern sport car. I for one think the f1 is one of the greatest automobiles ever built, and with it previously belonging to a racing legend I can see why it fetched such a high price

McLaren F1 built for Michael Andretti sold to British buyer for £6million | Western Morning News

A British petrolhead is thought to have spent more than £6 million on a McLaren F1 in what could be the highest price ever paid for a modern sports car.

The 240mph McLaren F1 is regarded as the Holy Grail of high-performance motoring and is worth at least six times as much as a typical Bugatti Veyron.

It is the most desirable car of the past 40 years and, with just 64 ever built, it is also one of the hardest to buy.

But now an anonymous Brit - a self-described "car nut" - has joined the ranks after spending what is possibly a record-breaking estimated $10 million on the Woking-built motor.

He joins an exclusive group of enthusiasts who own an F1 with Rowan Atkinson, Jay Leno and Ralph Lauren among a select few lucky enough to have a set of keys.

George Harrison, the late Beatle, also owned an F1 with his bespoke car currently held in a family trust.

This particular model, known as chassis 28, was originally given to US racing driver Michael Andretti by McLaren.

It is one of only two red McLaren F1s and it still has Andretti's signature on the back of the sun visor.

The racing driver held onto it for a couple of years before selling it to a Japanese collector. It has since been owned by two California-based F1 fans.

After spending the past ten years on the West Coast of America, the car has now returned to British soil thanks to Hertfordshire-based DK Engineering.

James Cottingham, vehicle acquisition consultant at DK, spent six months trying to source a car for his buyer.

A car was found and an agreement was finalised last month with the red supercar now shipped over to the UK as the world's most expensive modern car.

The price is thought to be around #6.2 million ($10m).

It achieved this price, in part, thanks to its breathtaking performance which comes courtesy of a 6.1-litre BMW engine developing 627bhp.

This gives the supercar, where the driver sits in the centre of three, a 0-62mph time of 3.2 seconds and a top speed of more than 240mph.

Despite being 20 years old, the McLaren F1 remains the world's fastest normally-aspirated car - a title it is unlikely to lose in the near future.

This latest model is the second McLaren F1 which Mr Cottingham has sold in the past year, an impressive feat in its own right.

He said: "I think this is one of the most important F1s because it was built for Michael Andretti, one of McLaren's race drivers and therefore seals the car's close links with the company's terrific motor racing heritage.

"F1s are without doubt one of the most difficult cars to sell or buy. You have a lot of 'fantasy' cars for sale so getting a genuine customer and genuine vendor is very hard.

"Likewise for a buyer, finding a dealer who will be able to fulfil the task in hand is very hard indeed.

"It took six months to find a car and get the deal in place and the new owner did not see the car before the transaction took place. I flew to California with 24 hours' notice and the deal was completed just a few days later.

"The F1 is the most significant road car since the Ferrari 250 GTO. A lot of 250 GTO owners also own an F1.

"Last year a model sold at auction for $8.5 million and the market has moved on since then."

McLaren only built 64 road-going F1 cars and they were sold in the mid-90s for a then staggering £540,000.

The Woking firm had hoped to build 300 F1s but there weren't enough wealthy fans at the time who were willing to spend more than half a million on a new car.

But their values, unlike most modern cars, have continued to rise and over the past few years have gone through the roof.

In 2008, a McLaren F1 sold for a then world record £2.53 million with the latest sale representing an increase of more than 1,000 per cent over its original retail price.

Gold, which has been one of the best investments over the past 20 years, has increased by around 300 per cent during the same period.



Read more: McLaren F1 built for Michael Andretti sold to British buyer for £6million | Western Morning News

Technically mclaren sold more than 64. The F1 LM payed homage to their win at Le Mans and they also converted a few of their race cars to road spec which were privately purchased. They are out there... The total number of F1s produced is around the 100 mark if memory serves correct.

The selling price is high because it's a McLaren F1 that was gifted to an ex McLaren driver, not because it was gifted to Michael Andretti specifically, in my opinion. Although a success in the CART series, Michael Andretti was not that well received by the Europeans. IIRC, his performance in Formula 1 was subpar, crashing/DNF'ing in half the races. He didn't even finish a complete season with McLaren in 1993! But if this was Mika Hakkinen's F1.....

We know McLaren F1 was inspired by NSX...

But I always wondered if they took an inspiration of Yamaha OX99-11 as well.
They do have some similarities, such as center cockpit and the design of rear.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...99-11_rear.jpg

told my dad this story & he said that he had a friend that has a mclaren f1, his friend was called Asim & he was a rich indian (from a wealthy family), he was the director of the watsons personal care store (at the time)

he bought it when it 1st came out, he was already ballen rich & also little corrupted so money was no problem to him lol

my dad was super surprise when i told him only 64 was ever made & he was like "wow didnt know that son of a gun asim had such good taste" (my dad never really like the f1)

and to think that Mr. Bean wrecked his F1 a couple years ago...

damn...whoever bought a McLaren F1 back in 90s for $1 million, they can now sell it for $10 million.

not a bad investment

Do you think Veyron would cost $10+ million in 10 years?

Relevant and AWESOME:

Note how a 20 year old car beats the fuckin Veyron off the line and HOLDS IT for half a mile...

Every once in a while a car comes along to not only change the landscape of (at least its segment in) the automotive industry, but also to remain relevant in subsequent decades that it damn well isn't supposed to. The F1 really is a marvel.

I remember reading that Honda was initially approached to build the F1's engine. Imagine if that fell through.

I don't think so.

A) There are roughly six times more Veyrons in the world than McLaren F1's
B) The McLaren F1 was actually has an actual racing pedigree, with a 1st Overall LeMans win in 1995.

yeah McLaren and Bugatti are kind of like Ferrari and Lamborghini.

One has rich racing heritage in F1, LeMans 24 and all that. Whereas the other one is more like street car only. Bugatti and Lamborghini have some racing history, but not a lot and definitely nowhere near Ferrari and McLaren.

For me the F1 is still the ultimate dream car, I'm still bummed that Rowans got totalled :(

There are only 107 McLaren F1s ever produced.
and 7 of them were prototypes (McLaren XP1 to XP7)

So only 100 McLaren F1 that are non-prototypes.

Many of them were bought by race teams.

Only 69 were ever registered for street use.
and out of 69, many of them were crashed, raced, turned into a race car for LeMans 24, JGTC, Super GT, etc. and some of those are just sitting in the musiums and car collectors' garage.

So considering all that, I don't know how many McLaren F1s are still available.

maybe there's only like 10 left lol. just by searching on google i can see so many McLaren F1 race cars

so jealous

Rowan Atkinson's McLaren F1 was never totalled. It's been crashed and repaired a few times though.

Maybe it didnt fetch as much for the reason you say, and obviously the main reason is because of the car itself but IMO Andretti is a pretty famous racecar driver. I don't follow f1, and use to watch NASCAR when younger, but Andretti is up there with Schumacher in terms of my knowledge of famous racers so I would think the name also validated the sale price a little more. Do you think if this were Jensen's car it would fetch the same price?

I could've sworn it got written off but it being repaired is obviously much better, thanks for clearing that up.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jenson's car fetched the same :whistle:

Source? I think the last time it crashed the frame/tub was damaged badly. unless he was willing to pay a shitload to McLaren and get it fixed.

The Sultan of Brunei own a few of them. I did a quick google search, and apparently people claim he owns 8! I wonder if that's true?

I wouldn't doubt it seeing he already had an endless amount of vehicles!

That's why I asked :p
I told you I don't know f1 lol

Mario Andretti is best Andretti :p

When I hear the Andretti name, I don't even think of John, Jeff or Michael.

mr. bean's insurer chose to have mclaren rebuild the car. here is one source:

Rowan Atkinson?s McLaren cost £910k to repair - BBC Top Gear

if you search youtube, you can see video of his F1 just after it was fully rebuilt and being displayed at an event while it was still in mclaren's possession.

there is a video posted above of the drag race between the bugatti and an F1... that F1 is atkinson's car. he lent it to top gear for that show, but this was before the Big Crash.