There are several ways of looking at this. A British supercar caparisoned for battle with Ferrari's 458 and Lamborghini's Gallardo. Built in Woking, at the creepily hi-tech home of McLaren Automotive (aka RonWorld), with 300 skilled jobs in the offing and on sale this May at a price of £168,500. Hurrah!
Another viewpoint is that since Formula One's inaugural world championship race at Silverstone in 1950, just one team – Ferrari – has consistently made road cars under its own name. Granted, BRM, BMW, Cooper, Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo and Mercedes-Benz are just some who have built or added their name to road cars, but they've not continuously been involved in F1. Founded in 1963, late Kiwi Bruce McLaren's eponymous team is the second oldest in grand prix racing, so what could be more fitting than its own road car?
Yes, it has built them before – and not just the epochal 1992 F1, the no-compromise road racer that won the Le Mans 24 Hours at its first attempt, in 1995. McLaren also built a series of Mercedes-Benz SLRs, an unhappy project that at least gave both parties some practical experience.
Although developed from the ground up as a road car, it was inevitable that every fibre of the McLaren F1 was laced with racing DNA. Having been assured several times that the car would not be track bound, designer Gordon Murray opted for comfort and practicality over raw performance in several crucial areas. Compromises were made, for example, to the size of the doors and the location and design of the suspension mounts. The result was a supercar that was not only as fast or even faster than its closest rivals but also more comfortable and practical. What was also almost inevitable, however, was that one of McLaren's customers would want to take his F1 racing.
This customer was Ray Bellm, an experienced amateur racer. At the time he raced a Porsche in the popular BPR series for production based GT cars. His initial request for a racing version of the F1 was not surprisingly met with a resounding no. When he subsequently suggested to his friend and McLaren CEO Ron Dennis that he would take it upon himself to convert the road car he had on order, Bellm did get a slightly more favourable response. McLaren would build him and him alone a racing version for the princely sum of 1 million pounds. This was well out of Bellm's budget and Dennis eventually agreed to lower the prices if Bellm could find additional customers. He did not have to look beyond the list of future F1 road car owners to find them; German banker Dr. Thomas Bscher and l'Oreal CEO Lyndsay Owen-Jones. With three firm orders in place, Murray set about turning the F1 into a GT racer.
Let's ride along with our British sister publication, CAR, for this pavement-ripping test of all-out automotive athleticism.
Few automotive performance benchmarks enjoy the cache of the hallowed 0-100-0-mph scramble. Although you won't find it formally listed in any FIA record book, that specific sprint-and-stop exercise has remained at the heart of countless bench racing debates for decades. Some credit Carroll Shelby as the first to formally throw down the gauntlet with his awesome Cobra contingent. Shelby's best efforts netted a claimed 13.8-second clocking. That often-disputed figure has since been lowered considerably, with the most recently documented record time being a 12.41-second clocking turned in by a Caterham Seven JPE, a blisteringly quick and agile spiritual successor to Colin Chapman's original Lotus of the like numerical designation.
But records are meant to be broken. When the chance came to subject a McLaren F1 LM-a vehicle many contend is the ultimate street-legal supercar ever produced-to this ultimate challenge, we eagerly tagged along for the ride of a lifetime.
Designer by the name of Gordon Murray, the same guy who designed Formula 1 cars for both Brabham and McLaren. Its blueprint was quite simple: it is light, it is streamlined, and it incorporates a host of proprietary technologies that most supercar manufacturers took literally decades to match.
The first thing that you will notice about this car is that it is unconventionally designed. Possessing a unique 3 seater configuration, the driver is situated at the center of the interior, with 2 passenger seats flanked along the back of the driver. This configuration allows for maximum visibility. But there are modifications that has been done on this car.
It is no secret that one of the most time tested formulas in performance vehicles is to have high power and low weight. It is interesting how the McLaren F1 attained its low weight. For starters, this is the first production car to use a monocoque chassis made out of carbon fiber. In addition, other components of the car such as the body, interior, and all those other parts are made out of lightweight materials such as carbon fiber, titanium, and Kevlar just to name a few.
The McLaren M6A was a racing driver Bruce McLaren and developed by his team of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing for entry into the 1967 Can-Am season. M1Bs to replace the team of 1966, an improved design of the McLaren M6A Chevrolet McLaren Bruce and his team won its first multiple Can-Am Championships. After McLaren M6A were replaced by the M8A in preparation for 1968, McLaren and partner developed the technique of Troy M6B which was sold to customers for use in Can-Am and other racing series.
Name of M6 was subsequently used to develop closed-cockpit sports car for 24 hours of Le Mans, and is known for M6GT. The company's plan to approve the rules of the FIA Group 4, however, was never completed, and only a few prototypes ready M6GT McLaren and Trojan horses. Two M6GTs then converted to road cars, one of whom was Bruce McLaren's personal transport.
