McLaren F1 Finance

Still the ultimate supercar?

After four years of meticulous planning, design and development, McLaren first revealed its groundbreaking, three-seater F1 at Monaco’s Sporting Club in May 1992. Designed by McLaren’s Gordon Murrary, with the carbon fibre body and interior penned by ex Ford, Lotus and Jaguar designer Peter Stevens, the F1 McLaren was to be the fastest, most exhilarating, most refined, most practical and indeed the finest road-going supercar the world had known, and quite possibly would ever know.

The McLaren F1 price stands at £540,000 apiece (almost £400k more than a Lamborghini Diablo VT) and powered by a bespoke, naturally-aspirated, 627bhp BMW Motorsport V12, early customer deliveries commenced in late 1994, with a car being made available to selected media at around the same time. Autocar & Motor was the only magazine permitted to accurately measure its performance, and the results were staggering: 0-60mph in 3.2 secs, 0-100 in 6.3, 0-200 in 28.0, 30 to 70 in 2.1, 60-80 in 1.2, the standing quarter mile in 11.1 secs at 138mph with an estimated 235mph top speed – estimated because no UK facility could cater for a top speed run.

That estimate proved to be conservative. In March 1998 at VW’s Ehra-Lessian test track in Germany, racing driver Andy Wallace achieved a two-way average of 240.14mph (albeit with the rev limiter removed), thus comfortably establishing a new world record.

For purity of driving the McLaren F1 came without interferences like traction control and anti-lock brakes (70-0mph in 49.5 meters), but it handled as well as it went, and it was exceptionally easy to drive, especially by supercar standards.

Production ended in May 1998, by which time the UK on-the-road price had risen to £634,500 (when a Ferrari F50 was a mere £350k) and a little under 70 of the original, short-tail F1 road cars had been built.
The McLaren F1 was, is and shall ever be the stuff of legend.