Oracle founder's ex-McLaren F1 car valued at €20 million
Between August 13 and 16, RM Sotheby's is auctioning a copy of the iconic English GT that belonged to billionaire Larry Ellison.
It's no coincidence that the McLaren F1 has become the most desirable and expensive road sports car in the world. Around 20 million euros. Designed by the talented South African engineer Gordon Murray, the Woking GT is, according to those who have driven it, a monument. Before launching the study of his GT for which he had carte blanche, he tried all the putative competitors: Ferrari F40, Bugatti EB110, Jaguar XJ220, Porsche 959. None found favor in his eyes. At the time, the man, who developed the world-winning Brabhams with Nelson Piquet and the world-winning McLaren MP4/4s with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, wanted to develop the lightest, best-designed, and most fun-to-drive car.
Presented alongside the 1992 Monaco Grand Prix, the McLaren F1 exceeded expectations in meeting its creator's specifications. He invented the ultimate benchmark. His GT is compact and outclasses all its rivals with a featherweight of 1,080 kilos thanks to the adoption of carbon, as in Formula 1. The pure lines aim for maximum efficiency. They dispense with unsightly aerodynamic appendages. Its gull-wing doors open onto a cockpit seating the driver in the center, like in a single-seater. A special feature of the cockpit: the central seat has a set-back seat on each side. The McLaren F1 revives the 3-ahead, central-drive architecture developed by Pininfarina in 1966 for the Ferrari 365 P Guida Centrale. Two examples will be produced for Luigi Chinetti, the Ferrari importer in the United States, and Gianni Agnelli, the boss of Fiat.
At the start of the project, Gordon Murray had imagined that Honda, the F1 team's engine supplier, would develop an engine for his GT, but when the Japanese refused, he turned to his friend Paul Rosche, the director of racing engines at BMW Motorsport. The Munich-based manufacturer had a naturally aspirated 6-liter V12 on the shelves from the aborted M8 project. The deal sealed, the F1 world discovered in Monaco that the McLaren F1 delivered 627 horsepower at 7,400 rpm. The F40's twin-turbo V8 didn't exceed 478 horsepower. The British technological gem came with a price tag: $1 million. Customers weren't rushing. The economy was in crisis. Of the 106 McLaren F1 series, only 64 road models would be produced. Seven of these crossed the Atlantic. Besides Ralph Lauren, Oracle founder Larry Ellison was one of the buyers of the British racing car. An eighth arrived on American soil for Elon Musk in 1999. The Oracle boss took delivery of his F1 in 1997. Bearing chassis number 062, it was the 53rd produced. After covering barely 2,600 miles in ten years at the wheel, Larry Ellison sold his steel-grey GT, registered "ORACLE8," to a San Francisco Bay Area enthusiast. Since then, it has changed hands once more. It's back on the market in the year Gordon Murray celebrates 60 years of automotive design.
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