This year’s McLaren F1 celebrates its 30th anniversary, and to mark that anniversary as it should be, Classic Driver and Kiklo Spaces have brought together an impressive collection of over a dozen McLaren F1 road and racing cars, during a special event titled “Thirty Revealed”.
Held at Kiklo Spaces, a new space dedicated to car culture in Hampshire, UK, the meeting hosted some of the most notable road cars as well as an amazing range of iconic McLaren F1 GTRs, including the “long tail” models.
Among these was Chassis 043, one of McLaren F1s’ most authentic on the road, wearing a unique livery inspired by the 01R chassis that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995. The 02R chassis, the most prolific of all Formula racing cars on display 1, along with the 1997 19R chassis which is the first McLaren F1 GTR to feature the “long tail” specification.
The event was also attended by distinguished guests including Peter Stevens, McLaren F1 designer, David Clarke, McLaren’s commercial director when Formula 1 was marketed, and Paul Lanzant, principal of the 24-hour-winning Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing Team. Le Mans 1995 F1 GTR 01R chassis, or Andrew Frankel, the first automobile journalist to drive and write about the McLaren F1.
“It seems difficult three decades have passed since we first saw what was to become, and remains to this day, the most amazing supercar ever launched,” Andrew Frankel explained during the private meeting. “I remember driving it for the first time and realized that every car I had driven up until that point, including all those great supercars of the late ’80s and early ’90s, in no way promised me to take the wheel of a McLaren F1.”
A model traded at over $20 million each
Envisioned by Gordon Murray powered by designer Peter Stevens and backed by Ron Dennis, the McLaren F1 redefined the supercar segment when it was launched in 1992. Its driving position, 6.1-liter V12, performance, architecture and clean, timeless lines made it a star The 1990s, to the point of seducing even celebrities like Ralph Lauren, Rowan Atkinson, George Harrison, Elon Musk, Jay Leno, Nick Mason, Lewis Hamilton or the Sultan of Brunei.
In 1998, the McLaren F1 (prototype XP5 to be exact) demonstrated the exceptional performance of this model, setting the world record for the fastest production car. Then British driver Andy Wallace hit 240.1 mph (386 km/h) at the wheel of the Nardo Circuit in Italy. In 2019, Andy Wallace himself will top the 490 km/h circuit at Ehra-Lessien (Lower Saxony), this time at the controls of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+.
Today, 106 copies of the British manufacturer’s McLaren F1 (road and competition models combined) are snapped up at gold prices. Last year, a 1995 chassis (No. 029) with a coverage of only 391 kilometers found a buyer for a record $20,465,000 at a Pebble Beach (California) sale organized by Gooding & Company. Thus, the McLaren F1 (029) ditched the 1994 McLaren F1 LM, which was sold in 2019 for $19.8 million by RM Sotheby’s, already during Monterey Car Week.
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