What does
it look like when something is designed without rules, without restrictions, without limits? One goal, one singular vision to break the template of what is possible, to redefine what it means to be fast. To push the limits of performance
until just before they break with whatever means necessary, whatever the cost. In 1992, one man was brave enough to ask this question and gave everything he had to find the answer a difficult pursuit that led him to create
something that transcended sports cars that bounded past what it even meant to be a super car, a monolithic achievement
forged from carbon fiber, titanium and gold, a singular pursuit of speed, of performance
that changed the very definition of fast forever. From the mind of a South African madman came a machine
capable of knocking down the Giants. Porsche. Ferrari, Lamborghini. All came to know
the answer to the question What if a car was created without rules? Without limits, that car would be the world's
first hypercar. The McLaren F1. Close your eyes and imagine a fast car. No, you idiot. A properly fast car. That's better. Yes. When you think of real, proper, fast cars, they're typically the screaming
metal death traps made by overzealous Italian men. Difficult cars, unreliable cars, but fast cars. But by 1990, the world of supercars had largely been resting on its laurels. They were using antiquated technology. The Countach’s V12 was nearly identical
to the engine Lambo developed in the late 60’s The Ferrari F40 was a tube framed chassis. It was basically a race car, wasn't exactly high tech, and owning
them was terrible. They didn't drive very well,
and it cost a fortune and required a team of people to keep them running. But that was what was working. That was what people wanted
from the world's most expensive cars. They wanted owning them
to hurt, apparently. And thanks to that,
the Italians were set in their ways, afraid to break the rules, fearful
that the next step forward in technology
might step them off of a cliff. And then Honda came along and well broke all of those rules. You see, Honda didn't know that a supercar
had to be unreliable just to be fast. They didn't know that they needed
to be undriveable just to look cool. They just knew that when you stick
an engine in the back of a little car, it was a lot of fun. And since they were Honda, they just weren't capable of building
an unreliable cable car. The Honda NSX was essentially an accident,
but it had impact. And like any impact,
it produced waves and ripples. Distortions
that carried quietly through the fabric of sports cars long after it was released. It brought in Senna,
the brilliant Formula One driver, who at the time
was the secret weapon of McLaren, a bespoke racing company who employed
some of the most brilliant car designers in the world and used Honda engines
to power those cars that they built. Now it's pretty safe to assume
Senna probably brought his personal NSX to the office once or twice,
because one of those designers at McLaren, a magnificent bastard
by the name of Gordon Murray, happened to fall in love
with that speedy little Honda wedge. Up until then, he had assumed that the Porsche 911
was the perfect sports car. But now he had tasted
an even sweeter fruit. The Honda NSX Murray knew that there was unrealized potential in the world of fast cars,
and he intended to prove it. It's 1988
and at an airport in Milan, Italy. Cigarette smoke fills the air. Negronis fill tumbler glasses at the bar. And after a particularly grueling
Grand Prix, four grumbly men sit around a table unaware that they are about
to decide the future of supercars. History books
would call them the McLaren four. Sitting in one corner
is the director of McLaren Racing, Creighton Brown, a man who in his life wore
1,000,001 hats, including pig farmer, jazz musician and most relevantly,
British team world champion driver. Next to him is Ron Dennis. McLaren's team manager,
a Formula car mechanic. Since the age of 18, when most people
were concerned about picking a college major, Ron was turning
wrenches on the fastest cars in the world. Across the table was Mansour
Ojjeh, a French Saudi Arabian who, being born with a pretty large silver spoon, pushed up his butt
was the financial backbone of the team. And there at the head of the table. Was Gordon friggin Murray,
a meticulously minded control freak, a pioneer in race car design He's basically the reason that Formula One cars
look the way they did in the seventies, and probably the reason that most car
designers have Rockstar hair now together, circled around a table, coffee breasts
wafting an air filled with cigaret smoke. They made a plan. You see, at the time, McLaren didn't
make normal cars that people drive. They only made racecars for race tracks
to be shown in front of an audience. Ujiri Ever the businessman saw an
opportunity for them to do something more. Ferrari and Lotus were both racing,
but they were also selling sports cars. McLaren, he reckoned, could do better. He stood in front of his team
of grizzled automotive veterans, each of them a genius in their own right,
and clasped his hands together. Let's do a road car,
the best road car in the world. Ron Dennis. Usually the voice of reason, hardened and cynical after years of
being the one fixing all of the mistakes had visions of money being flushed down
the toilet as they pursued this idea. But he got so caught up in the dream of what was possible,
he couldn't find the voice to say no. Creighton, Dennis and Ojjeh began
to hash out the details of this brand new company,
cleverly called McLaren Cars. Engineers aren't really good marketers. As they debated, Murray
sat quietly in the background, putting it all together in his own way
and on a simple sheet of paper. Gordon pens the prophecy of the F1,
sketches, words and thoughts that would become one of the greatest
engineering manifestos ever written. But before we read the prophecy,
maybe we should meet its hairy messiah first. Ian Gordon Murray was the son of a motorcycle racer
from Scotland. Born in 1946 in Durban, South Africa,
a beautiful coastal city known for its rich art deco architecture
and also its poisonous reptiles. His father at the time worked for Peugeot,
but would help people build race cars under the moonlight. Most people didn't have the money
to just buy a fast car, and that didn't sit right
with Poppa Murray. On the weekends, he would drag young
Gordon to watch the cars that he built. Race, whether it was hill, climbs up
cobblestone roads or rivalries
being hashed out on tight city streets. You can bet that the Murray duo
was there watching and taking notes. Papa Murray encouraged Gordon to study engineering
and continue to make cars better. Gordon begrudgingly did,
but had different ideas. Sure, he liked engines enough
and had even sketched a three passenger rear
engined car in his freshman notebook. But what Gordon really wanted to do
was race. So when Gordon was 21,
he decided he wanted a race car, but not having the money to buy one. He just set about building one. He managed to find a crashed Ford Anglia
that he could build into a race car, but he didn't have a garage,
so he built his engine in his bedroom. The chassis welded together
on top of his mother's flower garden. He used her fertilizer caked shovel
to shape the body panels. It almost sounds like an origin story
from a comic book Akin to Iron Man's suit
being built in a cave. Gordon Murray built his first race car
in his family's backyard. He called it the AGM Ford or T.1 This is the naming convention
that Gordon Murray still uses today. They're all t dot something. The T1 looked a bit like a Lotus
seven kit car. And that's because he used parts
from a Lotus seven to shape the body. But underneath it was all Gordon Murray. The T one's triangular tube suspension
would be the basis for future Formula One cars, and even though the lotus
was already known for being lightweight. Gordon had built a car
that was both lighter and stiffer. After a few wins, Gordon decided
that while racing was indeed a lot of fun, he should actually pursue
his two greatest passions by moving to the cultural epicenter
of both the center of rock and roll music
and racing engineering. No, not. Not America’s South. God's own England. Having sold the IGM Ford for a plane
ticket, Murray took his first few steps
into the halls of automotive mythology. He got to work designing championship,
winning Grand Prix cars. Lotus was who he wanted to work for,
but he got Brabham instead. There he was, named lead designer
by Bernie Ecclestone. Yeah, that Bernie, the F1
Bernie At Brabham Murray would design one of the most unique
and controversial F1 cars of all time. The BT 46 B or as you probably know it, the fan car, its giant fan at the rear sucked air from the bottom of the car,
creating insane downforce. The BT 46 B was a revolution, so upsetting
that it was only raced once before. Bernie decided that it maybe a bit too
much and might shake F1 to its breaking point. Gordon went on to pen more F1 cars
for Brabham, racking up 22 wins and taking second
in the Constructors Championship. His time at Brabham
gave Murray a singular focus and that was to out engineer
everyone and win. And in 1987, Gordon Parks,
his low slung F1 car designs into his coat
jacket and leaves Brabham behind him He lands at McLaren shortly after
on a three year contract under Ron Dennis. He helps then lead designer
Steve Nichols create winning designs cars
that helped McLaren set records and even
earned Senna his first championship. And thanks to all of this. In 1991, he's named
the lead of the new McLaren Cars Project, where his newly drafted
manifesto would be etched into the minds of everyone who took part. These were the words that everyone on
the F1 project had to live by. It must not weigh
more than 1000 kilograms. It will have a maximum width
of 1.8 meters, and the front and rear overhangs
must be absolutely minimized. The majority of the car's mass must be
between the wheels, and most importantly, it must not have any of the issues
normally associated with mid-engined cars. It must survive on roads, be stable
at high speeds, drivable at low speeds, and comfortable in short sketched on
wrinkled paper while talking shop. Murray had but one simple request. Just build the greatest road car ever. A car
that could be lived with like the NSX. A car that was beautiful,
like the Alfa Romeo, 33 Stradale. And oh yeah, faster than the Porsche 959. It would be built with Formula
One technology because after all,
that is what Gordon knew best now. Notably absent from the manifesto
was anything about top speeds or lap times or 0 to 60 times. That's right. For a car that dominated those performance
figures for years. They were never a part of the plan. Murray
didn't care about any of that stuff. And in fact, he kind of hated cars
that had a singular focus on speed. Murray specifically set out
to make sure this was not a race car. It was a road car. It was the ultimate road car. In Gordon's
mind, race cars had far too many rules. McLaren's debut would have no rules. They had no inertia to overcome. They needed to fit in no mold. They were limited
only by their imagination. Racing was regulated. And road cars were the Wild West. The three bigwigs at the helm saw Gordon's design, read his holy words and said, Yes,
we want this car. We want this car without rules. But in order to create a car
with no rules. Gordon Murray wrote probably more rules
than any other designer ever dared to make. And God help you
if you ever tried to break them. You see, Gordon
Murray is a man of details. The initial meeting to hash out
the specs of the F1 took nearly 11 hours after
getting the green light on the F1 project. Gordon put together his dream team
the best of the best. It included masterminds like Peter
Stevens, the man who designed the Lotus Elan M100
one of Gordon's favorite cars of all time, and Steve Randale, an early pioneer
in using computer models to design car chassis and who would later
go on to design flying frickin cars. This think tank got to work on
making Gordon's manifesto reality. It would simply be a no compromise
car made of advanced composites, carbon fiber, titanium, gold. There would be three seats
because a real driver's car had its driver sitting in the middle fully in command
of the machine, like a race car. But it still had to be practical enough
to bring your wife and daughter to the market. It needed luggage space. It needed to be reliable. And of course, this was a sports car. It would need instant throttle response
and pure driving feel. It couldn't have any assists. There wouldn't be any abs or power
steering or traction control. Those systems, those safety features
would take away control from the driver. A car controlled by computers
is not the ultimate driver's car. Gordon was confident that he could design
such a car. He had the vision
to bring this all to life. He knew he could engineer
the perfect chassis. The one thing he knew he didn't have
was the ability to create the perfect engine,
and for that he was going to need a partner. From the outset, Gordon Murray
knew the numbers. He wanted his engine
to give him 100 horsepower per liter and at least five and a half liters,
550 ponies on tap, 12 cylinders furiously
spinning beyond 7500 RPMs and most importantly, naturally aspirated,
waiting for a big, dumb turbo to spool up was not Gordon's
idea of the ultimate experience. And importantly,
the engine couldn't weigh very much. He wanted a power plant
that would stay under 250 kilos. As if that wasn't enough. It also had to be able to run forever
and have long service intervals, be able to run reliably
while experiencing race, car like G-forces and all while being a structural component
of the entire car. I don't think I need to tell you this, but in 1990, engines like that
did not exist, not even in racing. Gordon wanted the impossible
because again, this was a car made without limits,
a machine made without rules. But, you know, as you can see,
it has a lot of frickin rules. Gordon made the rounds. First he approached Honda. After all, they had already been building the engines
for McLaren's Formula One cars. And they did just build the NSX,
which is one of Gordon's favorite cars. So it seemed like a natural fit. But Honda straight up, ghosted him. They probably took one
look at the demands, especially the V12 and more than 300 horsepower part,
and went back to doing Honda things. But that was no problem because when you're Gordon Murray,
you eventually get what you want. He even considered
reaching out to Ferrari, but came to the conclusion that Ferrari would not be able
to make a reliable powerplant. I don't know what would
have given him that idea. Sure, Honda and Ferrari are masters of the internal combustion engine
and they're pretty obvious choices and I know this sounds crazy
for those of us living in the future now. He considered working with Isuzu. I know that sounds crazy,
but Isuzu actually had their own V12. A three and a half liters screaming lot of intricate
piping known as the P799 W.E. and the Engine actually
met Gordon's requirements. Ironically, though, head honcho Ron Dennis didn't want to give Isuzu the chance
because they hadn't proven themselves yet. I mean, I guess when you're McLaren
and you're developing your first road car, you didn't
really want to take any chances. So Honda left McLaren on red Ferrari was too unreliable
and Isuzu was too new thing. Gordon for Paul Rosche. Paul worked with Gordon before and thus had a lot of insight
into the designer's turbulent mind. You see, before Honda's partnership with McLaren's F1 team, Gordon
Murray had relied on BMW engines. Paul Rosche was the guy that designed
those racing engines and when Gordon called him up to tell him
about his new road car, they're building. Paul immediately said, I'm in. In record time, BMW produced
an all new 12 cylinder monstrosity called the S70/2. It was an aluminum forged masterpiece at 6.1 liters and 627 horsepower. It exceeded the 100 horsepower per
liter requirement, which was kind of a holy grail
at the time. It had dry sump lubrication, meaning
that oil would lubricate the cylinders, even under intense cornering. Each cylinder bank had its own water pump
and each specifically forged
aluminum piston had its own ignition coil, making sure that the electric system
was absolutely bullet proof. It even had Vanos, BMWs version of VTEC
so that it could be manageable at low speed and scream
as it climbed in the ribs. The only issue as far as Murray was concerned
was that it was a little heavy. I mean, it was German, after all. Gordon really wanted to keep the weight
below 250 kilos or about 550 pounds. The s70 was 20 lbs heavier than that. The weight you gain after your first year
of college eating nothing but Top Ramen. I can only imagine a frustrated Gordon
wrinkling his nose and going, I guess it'll have to do. Inside, he must have been furious. But the engine was the final piece
of the puzzle. The missing piece that allowed the car
to finally come together. And slowly all of these pieces
came together and automotive history began to form. The new BMW powerplant
would sit neatly tucked behind the rear seats, wrapped in gold
just to keep it cool. The exhaust pipe
specially made out of Iconel Yeah, I haven't heard of it either. Iconel is a special lightweight
aerospace metal. It stands up to heat
and it's really damn strong. They used Iconel
because the exhaust had to do double duty. It was both the speakers. You heard angel's scream out of. And they were also the rear crumple zone. Everything in the F1 was engineered
to damn near perfection. Most things had dual use
and this included the transmission. Like everything else about the F1,
conventional logic was ignored. Murray told
BMW that the car did not need a flywheel. BMW stared at him like he was on fire. The clutch was only 200 millimeters
and very light. The 60 degree V12 is perfectly balanced. Why do you need a flywheel? Gordon
inquired. BMW argued that you couldn't
build a road car without a flywheel. But telling Gordon Murray that he can do
something only delays the inevitable. So the McLaren F1 doesn't have a flywheel
and it doesn't end there. Included in the F1 quirks
and features are a number of industry road car firsts, including active,
intelligent, brake cooling. Whatever the hell that meant. And did you forget about that Brabham BT 45 B with the giant fan? Gordon didn't. He added fan assisted underbody downforce effects
to keep the F1 planned into the road. And overall there were two commandments
that Gordon Murray had for the F1. Lightweight
and rigid to suit that purpose. The engine was designed
to be a part of the suspension. It was load bearing. The McLaren F1 was as rigid as any car made before it
and yet it weighed less than a Honda Fit. All of this and more resided
under the skin of the F1. What was visible on
the outside was given no less thought. As soon as Murray
knew the dimensions of the engine, he knew what the rest of the car
would look like. They started with models. Thousands of models were built
until the best four were chosen, and then those 4/3 scale models were used
in more than a thousand wind tunnel tests. The McLaren team
chasing the absolute perfect shape, the most downforce
with the least resistance. This was before the rise of computer
particle modeling, mind you. These guys had to move little bits of clay around
and take notes more than a thousand times. And in 1991, they sculpted the entire car out of clay and set it
next to the Honda NSX. Seriously, have I mentioned
how much Murray loved the NSX? His goal was to make a smaller NSX
and of course, a faster one with a full scale clay model done
and an engine that defied physics ready to install. Murray got into the finishing touches. No detail
was too small down to a handbrake that feels good to the touch and is firm
enough to make you feel secure. Perfectly balanced. Gearlever
a steering wheel trimmed in carbon fiber and very importantly, three seats
that would allow each participant to experience
ultimate connection to the road. Murray had thought of everything
after years of meticulously planning. And I mean, there are probably bolts
that Murray spent months agonizing over. The F1 was finally ready for production. Now, if you think Gordon's obsessiveness
ended there, while you haven't seen
the inside of his factory. Every single tool has a place
the floors are clean enough to eat off of. And if you were one of the people
tasked with building an F1 and you had oil stains on your hands,
you were at risk of losing your job. I'm not saying
it was a terrible place to work, but I am saying that Swiss watchmakers
probably looked on with envy. It took a great deal of effort
to get a single, hand-built, ready to drive
McLaren F1 on the road, but it was worth it. Supercar competition
in the early nineties was fierce. The Ferrari F40 was duking it out
with the Porsche 959 2 cars that raised the bar
for what a sports car could be. Lamborghini had released the Diablo giving rich assholes
a car that matched their personas. Even Vector was experimenting
with fighter jets that they called cars, and Bugatti had been revived
in order to create the EB 110, a car that proved that fast
was still in the Italian vocabulary. But the McLaren F1
left them all in the dust. It was the ultimate driver's car,
something so fast that it was almost impossible not to break a law in it,
and yet so easy to drive, so comfortable. You could let your mom borrow it
for a run to the store. The seats were adjustable. Your passengers had miles of leg room. The roof was tall enough
for an actual tall person. And when you were driving
in, the naturally aspirated engine reacted in
an incredibly predictable manner. No wild turbo lag or strange
driving dynamics that scared you or tried to kill you. Sure, it lacked power steering,
but it was also absurdly lightweight and its complete lack of computer assistance means that the car
only did exactly what you made it do. The six speed transmission was fluid,
described as feeling like a well-oiled rifle bolt. Easy to shift with a light clutch. Its wide tires
and its revolutionary aerodynamics mean that it was absolutely glued to terra
firma, its engine revving fast and free. There's more torque at 1500 RPMs in an F1
than most cars have at Redline. There was always power on tap competition. There wasn't any. The F1 blew past
the 959 up to 60 miles per hour. It left the F40 in the dust on its way
to a hundred. It accelerated as hard at 150 miles
per hour as most cars did in first gear. You could see 200 miles per hour
in the time that it took to watch a commercial. All of this speed and all of this fury from a car
that was never designed to be a fast car. The F1 was made to be a good car. First performance always came second. I mean, shit,
the thing got 20 miles to the gallon. If you weren't too
heavy on the accelerator. This was a passenger car
that put the world's finest cars to shame. Hell, it even embarrassed most of the fully built
race cars at the time. There is still no car like it. Gordon Murray had succeeded in
exactly what he set out to do. Each one of the 60 or so F1s ever built
a monument to his fervent dedication to that singular goal
to build the ultimate road car. What he didn't set out to do
was break records, but the damn thing did it anyway. On a soggy autumn Saturday in Cologne,
a rich banker by the name of Dr. Thomas Bscher brings
his McLaren F1 into the shop to complain about a slight misfire. You see, he'd been daily driving it back and forth from Cologne
to Frankfurt every single day. That's an 118 mile trip. The McLaren Mechanics take out the ECU
and download his data to figure out the issue, and they stare
the flickering CRT monitor stunned. When are you experiencing this misfire? They ask. Thomas replies. Around 197 miles per hour,
and the issue data confirms his story. The doctor had been running up
speeds over 200 miles per hour on his long commute every single day. Automotive journalists at the time,
just for an article not in any serious capacity, had taken the F1 to
well over 200 miles per hour screaming at 7500 rpm in sixth gear. The journalist sensed
that the engine still had further to go. They just ran out of tarmac
and the car ran out of gears. Murray himself
estimated that with a longer gearbox, you could push the car to over
230 miles per hour. But these figures
were of zero interest to him. He never set out to break
top speed records, and yet his F1 has the longest
held top speed record in history at Volkswagen's test
track and Wolfsburg, Germany. Andy Wallace
stepped in the cockpit of the XP5 a specially maintained
McLaren F1 meant for testing. He would ease onto the banked
corner and begin accelerating. By the time he left the bank, he was
traveling at 270 kilometers per hour. Less than a minute later, he would shatter
the production car land speed record as the McLaren F1 XP five hit 391 kilometers per hour. Over the radio, he seemed disappointed it
ran over 391. But that's quite fast, isn't it? Quite fast. Might have been a bit of an understatement
in 1998, when that McLaren traveled just 1/500 shy of 243 miles per hour, it became the fastest naturally aspirated
production car to ever be built. Period. As Andy said after he drove it,
it is the best car ever driven and will never be beaten. This was truly the world's fastest car. And much to Gordon's likely chagrin,
it turns out the world's fastest road car was a really damn good
racing car, too. From its conception,
the F1 was always going to be a race car. I mean, sure. Ron Dennis said that it would never go racing and Gordon Murray kept
touting that it was only a road car. But the design, the engineering
and testing was all handled by the brightest minds in racing. What the hell did they
think was going to happen? They had made a fast car and fast cars need to be raced,
whether McLaren liked it or not. Demand for a race prepped
version of the F1 was over whelming, so Murray begrudgingly
agreed to make just nine race ready F1's designated GTR. Luckily there wasn't a lot
that had to be done to get an F1 ready for the race track. They added a roll cage, tighten up the steering, upgraded
the brakes, detuned the engine and spent just one day in the wind tunnel
to give it a little extra downforce. Those nine GTR's rolled out of McLaren's
top secret facility in Surrey and immediately set out to dominate
the world of racing in its debut year. Seven were entered into Le Mans Among them was a GT-R sponsored by Tokyo
Ueno Clinic, a plastic surgery firm. This would be the humble
McLaren's first foray into racing from road car straight to the most prestigious
auto race on earth. There, among purpose built race
cars, weapons on four wheels
honed over decades to compete in Le Mans The seven shiny F1 started the race
relatively mid-pack, but one of them took home the gold. The winning team was managed
by a group of McLaren eggheads who called themselves
The Kokusai Kaihatsu Team. They gathered three drivers
to pilot the F1 GT-R from France. Yannick Dalmas from Japan, Masanori Sakai
and from Finland. JJ Lehto Not only did the McLaren win
Le Mans, it set the speed record of 174.6 miles per hour
on the Mulsanne Straight. It was BMW Power's first win. It was the first win for a Japanese driver
and the first win for a Finnish driver. Oh, and of course, not only was it McLaren's first win in Le Mans
they took four of the top five spots. The ultimate road car proved to be
one of the most consistently fast race cars, and people continue to race them
professionally to this day. Gordon and his team had truly created
something groundbreaking, and it was almost
an insult to call it fast. So what do you call it? Fast. A Porsche is fast. Ferrari is fast. But the McLaren F1
was something different. In 1993 you had supercars. Ferrari had their F40. They was fast, but it was basically a tube
chassis racecar. Jaguar had the xj220 beautiful and fast, but sadly underpowered. Bugatti's
EB 110 might have run with the F1, but Bugatti in the 1990s was a mess. Lamborghini's Diablo had the looks
but was still an unrefined experience. Its beauty was only skin deep. Porsche's 959 was as close as it got, but it remained in the f one's rear
view window. No. The McLaren F1 stood alone. It was rarer than Ferraris, more expensive than Lamborghinis behaved on the road,
better than anything from Porsche. And more importantly,
it was faster than anything else. So raw, so fast,
so monolithic in its performance that it took a decade for something
to even come close. Gordon Murray and his team started with a singular goal
to create the ultimate road car through three years of development. With Gordon's unshakable resolve
and steadfast commitment to perfection. He succeeded in creating something more beyond what anyone at the time could even imagine was possible. A machine so delicately balanced,
so poetic in its delivery, it demanded to be heard an amalgam of raw brutality and space age technology
sharpened teeth and fiery ichor well behaved
but capable of savage brutality. Piloted by professionals,
the F1 was described as criminally fast
and impossible to drive slow. But not because of its power. But because even in a pedestrians
dumb shaking mortal hands, it was capable of being controlled without gimmicks,
without turbos, without assists. The F1 was pure. Huddled around a table in Milan in 1988. Four men set their minds to one purpose not to make a supercar, but to make something bigger. And in 1993, they did. They created the world's
first true hypercar.
great video
explained the what where why when and how of the supercar in an entertaining format
The ultimate car of the 20th century.
A journalist was invited to test drive the car along with a Mclaren test driver, at the test track. When the journalist was seated in the driver's seat and started the engine, the test driver told him to depress the clutch, but don't touch the accelerator and engage first gear, then let the clutch out gently, the car moved off and the test driver told him to change to the next gear and continue to change gears until he got to top gear, all without touching the accelerator. Now that's torque with a capital T
If only the desired carbon fibre brake discs and pads had been advanced enough at the time to be used on public roads, as Gordon had desired, the F1 would have weighed under 1000kg, unfortunately, he had to settle for metal brakes which put the weight up to 1038kg.
Nowadays the F1 owners have had to get together to establish a fund of money to make another batch of bespoke tyres. The same applies to the windscreen, which of course has a plasma discharge system to demist the screen.
It's a great pity that when the construction started and all the cars had received buyers' deposits the stock market crash at that time meant that a lot of buyers had to drop out, thus the desired production run of 300 cars only resulted in the seventy-two road models that exist today.
The seventy-two owners who took possession of their cars now have a multi-million dollar investment.
The last one changed hands for $ 20.5 million.
A guy stopped me on the street the other day and asked me if I wanted to buy a ticket in a raffle to win a Mclaren F1, I told him I've got too many already!