The McLaren F1 still has it 30 years later
It’s gone by in a flash, hasn’t it? The McLaren F1 is 30 years old which is quite frankly astonishing, given that even today there are certain benchmarks it continues to define in terms of build quality, engineering, driving feel and packaging. Only Gordon Murray himself is finally now having a crack at succeeding it, using three decades of advances in design, materials and engineering to move the game on. To celebrate 30 years of the McLaren F1, we thought we’d have a class of them on the Cartier Style et Luxe concours. Here are some shots of a number of examples of the original hypercar.
Of course, the original is the road car, of which a couple of examples are present. One is XP4, the original car in which our very own Andrew Frankel did the performance numbers in 1994 for the famous Autocar road test. Andrew managed among others, a 0-200mph time of under 30 seconds, which is swift going compared to the latest hypercars, let alone in the early 1990s. Joining it is a grey car which, while it’s said to be from a ‘Private Collection’, we know it belongs to a certain famous figure in McLaren’s history. We’re not telling. Another of the road cars wears the GTR wing and nose, comprising what’s known as the High Downforce Kit. This car was first made famous as the example driven both by Tiff Needell and Martin Brundle in his Supercars video feature over 20 years ago. Of course, the claret P380 GJM is the car formerly owned by Mr Rowan Atkinson.
The Red GTR is famously owned by Pink Floyd Drummer Nick Mason, who has a number of the incredible cars kept in his Ten Tenths collection here at Goodwood. It’s also run a number of times around the Motor Circuit and up the Hill in demonstrations. The Longtail was of course a response to Porsche’s joining the GT1 fray with what was effectively a 911-nosed prototype. Even such an incredible car as the McLaren F1 had to evolve to remain competitive. Which is your favourite F1 on the Cartier display? Or are you moved more by the GTRs that’re running on the Hill?
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Photography by Pete Summers.
Festival of Speed
2022
FOS 2022
McLaren
F1
Cartier Style et Luxe
