The McLaren F1 was, for a long time, the most expensive new car in the world carrying a list price of $1,000,000 (plus options).
Now it's one of the most expensive second-hand cars in the world, especially for a car built in the last 30 years, after an F1 road car sold for $29,207,314 Aussie bucks (US$19,800,000).
While the F1 road cars are acknowledged as the greatest driver’s cars of all time, at least two were upgraded to LM specifications by McLaren’s Woking factory, to give them similar performance to the Le Mans 24-hour-winning F1 GTR race car, but in a road registered package.
It was one of these LM-spec cars which sold at RM Sotherby’s Monterey Car Week auction for US$19,800,000.
This car, chassis number 018, actually spent the last 12 years in New Zealand in the hands of Andrew Bagnall and shows 21,487km (13,352 miles) on its odometer.
Seeing the F1, a car many in the industry regard as having the pedigree of the Ferrari 250 GTO, sell for this astounding sum elevates the world’s greatest driver’s car to a new level as a bona-fide investment.
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Iain Kelly
Contributing Journalist
A love of classic American and European cars drove Iain Kelly to motoring journalism straight out of high school, via the ownership of a tired 1975 HJ Holden Monaro.
For nearly 20 years he has worked on magazines and websites catering to modified late model high-performance Japanese and European tuner cars, as well as traditional hot rods, muscle cars and street machines. Some of these titles include Auto Salon, LSX Tuner, MOTOR, Forged, Freestyle Rides, Roadkill, SPEED, and Street Machine. He counts his trip to the USA to help build Mighty Car Mods’ “Subarute” along with co-authoring their recent book, The Cars of Mighty Car Mods, among his career highlights.
Iain lends his expertise to CarsGuide for a variety of advice projects, along with legitimising his automotive obsession with regular OverSteer contributions.
Although his practical skills working on cars is nearly all self-taught, he still loves nothing more than spending quality time in the shed working on his project car, a 1964 Pontiac. He also admits to also having an addiction to E30 BMWs and Subaru Liberty RS Turbos, both of which he has had multiple examples of. With car choices like that, at least his mum thinks he is cool.
About Author
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