A phrase you often see on second hand car adds, normally applied to scrapyard fodder. But in this case it’s actually true.

This ad on pistonheads is for a one owner, zero mileage, completely mothballed McLaren F1.

£650,000 in 1997 and likely to sell for somewhere between 15 – 25 million 😯

Takes money to make money, but I’m just not sure about the colour.

The interior is a bit shabby for that money.

I don’t like the colour (so I’m out 🙂 )and it’s not really a car, since you can’t drive it without hugely devaluing it – it’s more like buying a piece of art.

Who in the wide, wide world of sport buys that and never even takes the covers off it?!?

[/quote]Who in the wide, wide world of sport buys that and never even takes the covers off it?!?

Someone who wants to turn £650,000 into £25million in 20 years. A very good return on investment.

Not bad, buying $1,000,000 of Apple shares in 1997 would have yielded a similar amount…but who’s got a spare mil just lying around. The temptation to jump in a drive it around the block and half its value…

Who in the wide, wide world of sport buys that and never even takes the covers off it?!?

Someone who had enough money to buy one to drive and one to keep for investment?

who would pay 15-25 mil for it though? how much more is it going to go up in value?

Criminal waste of a car, but still they’re going to make a fortune from it.

I will never understand it though, they sought to make the best car in the world, but it might as well be a clay model – it’ll spend the rest of eternity sat in some air conditioned garage somewhere, maybe see the light of day every 20 years or so when it’s owner is bored of it and wants a jet or something.

Still, this could well be the the prick that bursts the bubble, when you hear that a Saxo VTS is an appreciating asset now and worth twice what it was 12 months ago, you can guess the bubble is about to burst.

who would pay 15-25 mil for it though? how much more is it going to go up in value?

If it ends up anything like the Ferrari 250GTO, which it probably will, then it could end up going for upwards of what they are going for. The record for a 250GTO is $52m back in 2013 which at the time was £32.5m.

I don’t think it’ll go for £25m, most recent one was £11.8m with 9600 miles on so I reckon £20m tops. An investor will buy it and it’ll not see the light of day for another 20 years by which time it’ll be worth £40m.

brakes – Member
who would pay 15-25 mil for it though? how much more is it going to go up in value?

That’s the big question, is there one more billionaire left who thinks there still some way to go? Or maybe just one that wants it now and doesn’t care too much about the value.

Would you want this, or a P1, plus every other road car McLaren has ever made, possibly including a slightly ‘rough’ F1?

Here’s another;

Someone who wants to turn £650,000 into £25million in 20 years. A very good return on investment.

God will punish them for their sacrilege. 🙁

It’s interesting to note that most of the super high value classics (like the GTO and 250lm) are so valuable because of their racing heritage – they are the complete opposite of a garage queen.

That McLaren will never have that so I think it’ll never achieve the same status. Going by its age and appreciation thus far it might be logical to assume it’ll just keep going up and up in value but I think at a certain point it becomes a complete abstraction. You can still drive a £50 million GTO to the shops, or enter into classic race series’ and travel the world with it, but with this all you can do is continue to preserve it at which point it completely ceases to be a car.

That’s a good point jimjam, people are doing similar things with current limited run production cars. I think the 911R is the best recent example, list price £137k and they were selling for £500k within a few months and I’d guess that quite a few of those went to investors.

I shudder to think how much this would have been worth had it been an F1LM or F1GT.

northernmatt – Member

I think the 911R is the best recent example, list price £137k and they were selling for £500k within a few months and I’d guess that quite a few of those went to investors.

Obviously the 911R will still hold some of that massively over inflated value but I think anyone who paid 500-800,000 for one will be out of pocket after Porsche announced the spec of the new GT3. I guess that’s potential downside of that type of speculation.

I shudder to think how much this would have been worth had it been an F1LM or F1GT.

Yeah you could see a LeMan winning LM doing similar things to the 250 GTO in 15 or 20 years time.

you could see a LeMan winning LM doing similar things to the 250 GTO in 15 or 20 years time

The key will be if they can still be driven in anger without significant modification to their electronic systems etc.

The advantages of the majority of historic vehicles is that their bodywork and chassis can be mended with a hammer and welding torch of they’re crashed and the mechanicals can be fixed with spanners and lathes. This is key to owners allowing them to continue to be raced.

the historic F1 is seeing similar issues – the older space framed cars with DFV’s are ok, carbon tubs and ‘you need a 35 year old laptop plugged into the engine management to start it’ are big negatives. Williams seem to be doign things to keep their historic F1 cars mobile but eventually the electronic equipment will begin to break down internally.

One can’t help but feel whoever has sat on that for 25 years should be fined twice his profit for having NO SOUL. And bad taste in colours…

A friend of mine bought a silver one of these, he had no intention of buying to keep as an investment. Trouble was his job lead him to live between Moscow and London and the car was in London doing nothing. He asked me and my Wife to “take it for a spin to keep it running” and we did, but boy was it both nerve wracking and awful. Driving down Old St in Town through Commercial St and out to the A2 via Limehouse was fraught with “shit they’re close, yeah mate stop beeping whateva, oi just stop being a dick and trying to race me ok, oh crap did i hit the kerb, bloody hell am i going to get round that horrible Aldgate junction, oh fxxxxxxxxx, god this is scary, ohhhh a straight road.. right then 50mph it is.. oh look a nob in Beemer wants a race, oh sod this I’m turning back its a bloody liability and no doubt I’m going to damage the thing” You get the picture.. frankly it was bloody horrible.. unless you can drive somewhere nice and twisty without other road users its a waste.
So the thing did 1900 miles and sat dormant for a year, I drove about 500 of those miles just warming the thing up.. When he decided to sell it because he’d moved out of London (Brexit decision) I handed the keys to a dealer who came to collect it and they kerb’d it pulling out of the underground carpark.. and.. you wouldn’t mess with the two fellas that came to collect it.. huge burly Russians dressed in combat blacks and monobrow frowns..

If I won the euromillions I would love to buy that, then at the auction house after I transferred the money, rip off all the dust covers on the interior while the engine warmed up, then leave some very very very long number 11’s across the car park as it enjoyed its first ever mile on its odometer…. #happycar

newrobdob – Member

If I won the euromillions I would love to buy that, then at the auction house after I transferred the money, rip off all the dust covers on the interior while the engine warmed up, then leave some very very very long number 11’s across the car park as it enjoyed its first ever mile on its odometer….

I’m guessing but I think you’d have to trailer it McLaren first to get some oil and fluids in there, better fit some new tyres and any other perishable rubber parts too before you go leaving 11’s anywhere.

How rich is the owner, will £25000000 actually make any difference to his life. If he is so rich that it wouldn’t, he would have been better off driving it unless he did indeed buy two.

An investor will buy it and it’ll not see the light of day for another 20 years by which time it’ll be worth £40m.

By which time an ICE car built in 1997 will be illegal on the roads.

I’m guessing but I think you’d have to trailer it McLaren first to get some oil and fluids in there, better fit some new tyres and any other perishable rubber parts too before you go leaving 11’s anywhere.

After a euromillions win? Nah, slap in some castrol GTX and 40 litres of VPower, leave teh 11’s and then send it off to McLaren for repair 😉

Barbarian.

Its not that uncommon though is it? I see to recall an xj220 bricked up in a salesroom somewhere

Its not that uncommon though is it? I see to recall an xj220 bricked up in a salesroom somewhere

This one? Sold for £105k at auction, be worth £400k now which is less than what they were new.

After a euromillions win? Nah, slap in some castrol GTX and 40 litres of VPower, leave teh 11’s and then send it off to McLaren for repair

Having just watched this video, I think you’d probably regret doing that when the repair bill came in.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsKDGdcb6BQ[/video]

The key will be if they can still be driven in anger without significant modification to their electronic systems etc.

The advantages of the majority of historic vehicles is that their bodywork and chassis can be mended with a hammer and welding torch of they’re crashed and the mechanicals can be fixed with spanners and lathes. This is key to owners allowing them to continue to be raced.

the historic F1 is seeing similar issues – the older space framed cars with DFV’s are ok, carbon tubs and ‘you need a 35 year old laptop plugged into the engine management to start it’ are big negatives. Williams seem to be doign things to keep their historic F1 cars mobile but eventually the electronic equipment will begin to break down internally.

Friend of a colleague (electronics engineer) works with Aston Martin in their restoration/old car workshop.

They do all sorts of clever stuff with 3D printing replica switchgear and re-building the very early electronic systems with mini-pc’s (raspberry Pi, arduino etc).

The issue comes down to what’s restoration and what’s modification. Does replacing the points with a hall effect sensor (or even electronic ignition) ruin the car, or does it mean it can be driven for more than a couple of petrol stops between having to adjust the points? Most owners are happy that if it looks the same and works the same then it’s acceptable until you get into historic racing with specific rules (sometimes mandating modifications).

joshvegas – Member

Its not that uncommon though is it? I see to recall an xj220 bricked up in a salesroom somewhere

An XJ220 is not a McLaren F1 though.

I meant the not touching them and waiting fir appreciation.

Backfired with the jag though eh? 😀

An XJ220 is not a McLaren F1 though.

Nope, it’s far better looking and won’t try and instantly kill you if you try to drive it at high speed.

Its not that uncommon though is it? I see to recall an xj220 bricked up in a salesroom somewhere

My mate helped ‘find’ that XJ220.

The finance company I worked for at the time was one of, if not the biggest creditor when Malbrough Carpets failed and my mate who was one the RM in charge of their account was present at the creditors meeting with the liquidators whilst they tried to work out what asset the ‘vehicle’ was on the accounts that had been sat on the books forever, they had Vans and Trucks they’d we’d financed but didn’t tally with it. I think one of them was fairly local and remembered the car when it was in the middle of the showroom when he was a kid, I remember it too – it was just sat there with a rope around it, but I guess the owner got worried about the number of kids that would touch it and try to open the doors so they built a wall around it.

It’s a shame they didn’t sell a few more carpets in 1993, he paid £400k for it – Jag were still trying to sell them for years after they officially stopped making them for half that, even less. If he’d spent the extra £250k on an F1 it could have been worth £1 – £1.5m in 2003 as an undriven one.

sbob – Member

An XJ220 is not a McLaren F1 though.

Nope, it’s far better looking and won’t try and instantly kill you if you try to drive it at high speed. [/quote]

Wait, are you trying to suggest that an XJ220 is somehow safer than a McLaren F1? Regardless, safety and usability aren’t high up the list of requirements when it comes to multi million pound exotica.

As for looks, subjective obviously but I think the McLarenF1 is almost perfect. All moot anyway since history will deem the F1 as maybe the purest expression of automotive engineering, and the Jag probably one of it’s most famous failures.

Wait, are you trying to suggest that an XJ220 is somehow safer than a McLaren F1? Regardless, safety and usability aren’t high up the list of requirements when it comes to multi million pound exotica.

I think he’s saying that it’s easier to drive, which it is supposedly. It’s a big GT car, but give both a Lewis Button to drive around a track and the F1 will bugger off into the distance never to be seen again.

Not that it matters one bit, people will happily modify, drive and race their 220s because they’re cars, F1s are assets, so Mr. Bean aside they don’t get driven much.

This thread on PH is from a guy who actually used his one, quite interesting.

Worth it just for the natty timepiece.

….but anyone seen the dealer’s other stock?

http://www.tomhartleyjnr.com/used

😯

Oh nice Carrera Gt….gah. Too late.

P-Jay – Member

It’s a big GT car, but give both a Lewis Button to drive around a track and the F1 will bugger off into the distance never to be seen again.

Not that it matters one bit, people will happily modify, drive and race their 220s because they’re cars, F1s are assets, so Mr. Bean aside they don’t get driven much.

Not a GT car – mid engined, no luggage space, no power steering, no power anything except windows. It was designed to be what the F1 actually was – the ultimate supercar of its day. That’s where it gets interesting. Jag took plenty of deposits from speculators who then forfeited when the final car was nothing like the proposed machine.

They ended up with excess stock of the cars just lying around. At one stage they were selling for less than £100k so no wonder people took them racing. Especially when you consider TWR were offering what amounted to a track package for them.

McLaren on the other hand deliver exactly what they said they would, and no doubt some were bought by speculators but the arse had fallen completely out of the supercar market at that time so it would not have appeared to be a shrewd investment.

All moot anyway since history will deem the F1 as maybe the purest expression of automotive engineering, and the Jag probably one of it’s most famous failures.

Yep, the “car built without compromise” wasn’t it?
(It wasn’t, I know of several manufacturing compromises made, there always are)

Oddly enough, the Jags I’ve experienced have all been standard, the one chap I know with a Macca is constantly tinkering with it.

Oh sweet Jesus….the sold list…

http://www.tomhartleyjnr.com/used/previously-sold-cars

Bin Laden’s cousin owns Rowan Atkinson’s old F1