If you’re a serious McLaren F1 nerd, then you’ll no doubt know the significance of Chassis 029 – and if not, let us give you a crash-course enlightenment session.
In 1995, the 25th McLaren F1 road car rolled off the production line in Woking. The one-off hue, Creighton Brown, draws its name from the eponymous businessman who was instrumental in the establishment of McLaren Cars, but the colour just where the story starts. Having spent the majority of its life locked away in a Japanese collection, the progenitor of hypercars has managed to rack up just 390 km in its 26-year lifespan. It still wears its original date coded Goodyear Eagle F1 tyres and the package is as it was when buying a new McLaren F1 all those years ago along with the original FACOM tool chest, McLaren F1 fitted luggage, titanium tool kit, official ‘Driving Ambition’ book, and special TAG Heuer watch.
This time-capsule F1 went under the hammer this past week at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach Auction, held at Monterey Car Week. Fetching a record $20,46 million (approximately R302,4 million), it breaks the previous highest record set for a McLaren F1 which was $19,8 million (approximately R292,5 million) for chassis 018 in 2019, an example which was converted by MSO (McLaren Special Operations) to ultra-rare LM specification. This isn’t the first time a ‘nearly new’ McLaren F1 has gone up for sale – in 2017, chassis 060 was for sale and the asking price contained a fair few zeroes, too.
Designed by legendary South African Gordon Murray, the McLaren F1 shifted the goalposts for high-performance cars and still holds the record for the fastest naturally aspirated production car with a top speed of 240 mph (386 km/h). Of the 106-car production run, just 64 F1’s were completed to original road car specification. Powered by BMW’s S70/2 6,1-litre V12, it produced 461 kW and 651 N.m of torque and weighed just 1 140 kg. 0-100 km/h was dealt with in just 3,2 seconds which is quick by today’s standards – imagine what the world thought in 1993!
Final production numbers are as follows;
F1: 69
F1 LM: 6
F1 GTR: 28
F1 GT: 3
