Feature: McLaren F1

The McLaren F1 is one of the few exotic cars that was designed with a clean sheet of paper starting about 1990. McLaren was started by Bruce McLaren as a constructor of race cars. The company competed very successfully in CanAm in the U.S. and Formula 1. Their designer, Gordon Murray got bored designing Formula 1 cars and asked his boss Ron Dennis if he would design a road car, would McLaren build it? I assume after much discussion of the business aspects of the decision, they decided to proceed.

Rarely does a designer get to build a car with no constraints. Usually there is an engine that the manufacturer has on the shelf or a platform that must form the basis for the car. Not this time. Here are Gordon Murray's own words on this car: "The F1 was created as the purest driver's car, compact and above all ultra-lightweight. It also embodies the most advanced engineering, intricate and elegant detailing and peerless quality."

OK, so what is a car like this doing parallel parked at CalTech in Pasadena in January 2004? I'm not sure. The real question I have is who would parallel park a car like this that's probably worth $2 million? Again, I'm not sure. The picture does show that when you park a car like this, it draws a crowd. But this picture gets me ahead of the story of the car, so let's go on with the story.

Designing a road car is more complex than a race car. The designer needs to consider all the various (and sometimes conflicting) standards and rules that countries have for road cars. Early on Murray decided that the car would not comply with U.S. standards. Probably that was because of the very expensive testing process.

McLaren had most of the fabrication talents and facilities necessary to make the car, but they didn't have the knowledge or facility to make the engine. Murray contacted Paul Rosche at BMW and they agreed that Rosche would design the engine and BMW would make them. It is a 6.1-liter V-12 that develops 627 horsepower. Other suppliers were contacted as the design process continued like Kenwood to make a very light sound system for the car.

The car ended up as a three-seater with the driver in the central location with the passengers to his left and right behind him. At least Murray wouldn't have to worry about making left- and right-hand drive versions of the car! Of course it would be a mid-engine car that very much resembled a racing sports car.

The car was launched in Monte Carlo in 1992 with stunning levels of performance and an astronomic price tag of £640,000. That was very close to $1.2 million at the time. Was there a market for a car at that price? Unfortunately for McLaren, their predicted production figures were never achieved. One thing that did happen is that the car established a market for stratospheric-priced cars like this and Ferrari and Porsche to name just two have built cars like this successfully in recent years.

What kind of performance did the car achieve? The all-important 0-60 time in the U.S. has been measured at 3.1 seconds. That is stunning! Another extremely impressive number is the top speed, measured in Europe at over 240 mph. Those were both record numbers in their day for a "production" car. In fact, 10 years later, they still are near-record numbers. The numbers really aren't surprising for a car with very carefully designed aerodynamics and a curb weight of 2425 pounds.

So this is a very fast car. But it also is a road car in every sense of the word. It does have a 6-speed manual transmission, not an automatic. Remember that it is first a driver's car. The driver must be comfortable controlling the car, so it has real air conditioning; electric demisting for all glass front, side, and rear; electric windows; central locking; CD stereo; courtesy lights; map lights; and a titanium tool kit.

McLaren ended up making just 100 of these cars with 72 still running. There were several variations of the car including very successful racing cars. There were 64 of the "base" F1 made starting in 1992 and ending in 1998. In 1995, after a lot of prodding by customers, Murray modified the F1 to race at Le Mans that year. Nine entered with five finishing, and one winning! That encouraged the factory to make five road cars similar to the race cars called the F1 LM. The car didn't do as well in later years. In 1996, nine entered with the top finisher in fourth. In 1997, 10 entered with the top finisher second.

What about the U.S. market? The car was not designed to be legal here. Despite that, McLaren worked with (perhaps not that happily) a company here to legalize a few of the cars. Both DOT safety regulations and EPA emissions were problems. The picture changed drastically in 2002 when Congress approved regulations for the DOT to have "show or display" cars. This means that certain cars can be imported with the guarantee that the owner will drive them less than 2500 miles a year just to shows. People can apply for approval for any car, but to this date just 17 cars have been approved, the McLaren F1 one of them. There also is a "disapproved" list with 17 cars on it. So now you can bring one of these great vehicles here and drive it less than 2500 miles a year. The problem is that the EPA has no such rules, so the car must be modified to comply with the EPA rules. There have been quite a few F1s come here with one in Jay Leno's garage.

This is the first car to get the "NOT-ometer" number. With it's no-compromise design to be a driver's car, it must get the maximum 10 on the meter. It most definitely is not a refrigerator.