Interesting tidbits about the McLaren F1

[GG Allin]

That $11,000,000 figure is a little light.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

Stephen (Captain Ahab Jr) to the white courtesy phone...

Here I am! along with the rest of the team that created the 1st car

Apologies for the re-post but still amazes me how few people there are


Last day before XP1 the first prototype car moved under it's own power was the longest 36 hour long day on my life

I'm rapidly approaching the big five 'O' , not 50 years old but 50 cars I've helped design. F1 is still a favourite

[sammyg2]

Betcha can't haul a full sheet of plywood with one

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Betcha can't haul a full sheet of plywood with one

It only hauls ass.

(And two passengers.)

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Betcha can't haul a full sheet of plywood with one

This is why I didn't buy one

I'm sure the McLaren Special Vehicle Operations division would build a matching trailer but you'd need to make sure you only loaded it up with hurricane spec. plywood

[RWebb]

roof rack to clear the scoop

[javadog]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

It only hauls ass.

(And two passengers.)

That’s the same thing. If you own one of these, you can pull all the ass you want and it will hold two at a time.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

Here I am! along with the rest of the team that created the 1st car

Apologies for the re-post but still amazes me how few people there are


Last day before XP1 the first prototype car moved under it's own power was the longest 36 hour long day on my life

I'm rapidly approaching the big five 'O' , not 50 years old but 50 cars I've helped design. F1 is still a favourite

There's gotta be some interesting tidbits or bits of tech or minutia that you can tell us about without the McLaren MiB coming to get you!

[doug_porsche]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

Here I am! ...

Ok, before I declare you an automotive god...

You're not the one who added/designed the bracket in the engine compartment are you?

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

I'm rapidly approaching the big five 'O' , not 50 years old but 50 cars I've helped design. F1 is still a favourite

What are the others you helped design? anything exiting or was it all downhill after the mcF1?

[MrBonus]

Love this! What a great read.

[GG Allin]

One of the most interesting tidbits about the McLaren F1 is that they're all accounted for except for one. That one last seen in Mexico. It will be interesting if it ever turns up and where.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by GG Allin

One of the most interesting tidbits about the McLaren F1 is that they're all accounted for except for one. That one last seen in Mexico. It will be interesting if it ever turns up and where.

Interesting. Does that mean that no one, including McLaren knows where it is?

That's crazy. Can you imagine that as a barn find?

It's probably in El Chapo's barn. I wonder who he got to work on it?

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Steve,
it would be the Italian MiR coming for me

A misconception most people have is the F1 was a race car built for the road, this is how it all went down.....
https://www.mclaren.com/racing/heritage/cars/1995-mclaren-f1-gtr/

If you ever see the 95 Le Mans 24hr winner, look at the underside, carbon patches glued on the floor are for roll cage feet hard points I designed which needed retro-fitting to a chassis that was pulled out of the road car production queue

George Harrison's car was my favourite road car. The deep metallic purple was colour matched to an eggplant/aubergine with Buddhism symbols sprayed into the clear coat is such a subtly different shade it's only possible to see them if you catch the light right. Think he wanted to put some magic spells in between the layer of carbon too but we couldn't work out how to do it.

This reminded me Ferrari always get in the local Maranello priest to holy water bless the first of each new race car. Guess they need to change they're water source and use some of the smelly swap water from the stream that runs through the Mercedes Brackley factory site.

We also fitted a 'spiritual roll cage' of lucky crystal elephants, front elephant's home required a structural modification to the dash area, rear elephants home had a F1 racing style kevlar hinged door and the one next to the gear stick had a fibre optic cable up it's butt so it would light up with the interior lights

All very rock n roll and coolest of all the special customer requests. Money doesn't buy you style but George had it in spades

This an excellent thread with many posts from an actual McLaren F1 owner and a few very knowledgeable geeks, I often find out new stuff about the car and project
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1433551

doug,
only Gordon Murray can be referred to as an automotive god, bracket wasn't me but you can blame me for most of the chassis and the long tail 97 GTR roll cage among other things though

Don't think any of that motley bunch of super car first timers in the photo ever gave any consideration that we were making a motoring icon, seems quite a strange thought now https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/mclaren-p1/men-who-made-mclaren-f1

svandamme,
not entirely downhill, enjoyed a few lucky uphill stretches since but starting out my career working on a car that created so many world firsts, records and race wins was a tough act to follow

Last count not including the McLaren F1 road/race car variations I've worked mostly on the design side on a F3 car, an Indy Lights race car, 2 Indy cars, another super road car, over 30 F1 race cars, 3 F1 test only cars, a F1 land speed record car and 2 Formula E cars. All done working at Alfa Romeo, Renault, Honda, Ferrari and Jaguar works race teams which also supported a number of customer teams

Guess a few could be considered exciting because they either changed the game or hadn't been done before or created a company/championship history milestone

I asked to work on Singer DLS, spent 3 months working on the engine design side and left to do my first EV car.

Was desperate to sprinkle some old McLaren F1 magic on the chassis design. Too many so called 'experts' with no relevant experience trying to make a name for themselves or a fast buck first involved so my persistent offers of help were ignored or not heard

Still regret missing out on this one, who know's maybe they'll read this and give me a call one day

Old saying goes you only regret the stuff you did't do and that applies to car projects too

Next year I'll hit 50 work car projects, averages out nearly one a year of my life so guess I can be forgiven for my own car projects looking like a cobblers children's shoes

GG,
I'd love to read one day the Mexican F1 is found, would make me feel less bad about declaring the Sultan of Brunei's car to be a write off, could have been rebuilt but only from a salvaged door

[masraum]

Thanks for the response and interesting info.

You need to start your own thread with more info on what you've done. From my point of view, you may not be an automotive god, but you're certainly an automotive rock star.

[astrochex]

Captain, which Indycar projects did you work on?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Ayles

Very interesting, but when you pay that much for a car, it's not going to be cheap to own.

Also, as Captain A said, they weren't designed to be race cars that were then made street legal, they were designed to be the ultimate street driver's car.

If I could afford and had an F1, you can bet your ass that I'd be paying someone for instruction on how to drive it. I'm sure that PCA HPDE are great events, but I think I'd be paying someone really special to teach me to drive the car on a track so I wouldn't be afraid to drive the car on the street. I'd darn sure be driving it.

This guy talks about "even if you don't drive it, the maintenance is expensive because the fuel cell needs to be replaced every 5 years" (that's not precisely true, the bladder inside the fuel cell gets replaced, not the whole fuel cell)

So I'd be driving the hell out of it. That's like having a super hot, super high maintenance wife and never having sex with her. What's the point?

Listening to this guy, he sounds pretty clueless. But I have read that the tires get "scrubbed in" by the factory.

The great news is that the cars are appreciating at such a rate that it shouldn't be that big a deal.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by masraum

...
So I'd be driving the hell out of it. That's like having a super hot, super high maintenance wife and never having sex with her. What's the point?

...

burning fuel after a crash is one difference

[masraum]

Originally Posted by RWebb

burning fuel after a crash is one difference

I assume you're talking about the bladder in the fuel cell, not the hot, high maintenance wife?

[sc_rufctr]