McLaren P1s - Which have I seen?

Considering the coronavirus outbreak has stopped many car related events taking place as well as the ability to leave the house to go car spotting, one idea that occurred to me was to document rare cars that I have seen with information on each one. The McLaren P1 was revealed 7 years ago and yet they are still an incredible car to see. With 375 examples produced, I have been lucky enough to see six examples of the car that brought McLaren back to the supercar market.

The first McLaren P1 I saw was way back in 2016 at the Autosport International show at the NEC in Birmingham. It was the first major car show I attended and it provided a great surprise to walk around a corner and gaze upon the Autocar stand, which had on it the new Ferrari 488 GTB, an Aston Martin Vulcan (the first I'd seen) and this McLaren P1. It was finished in Ice Silver over black leather with the McLaren Orange brake calipers which added a bright element to the car. Having being originally delivered to Utrecht in Holland, this P1 was the first production McLaren P1 and was owned by a gentleman from the UK upon delivery. However he ended up leaving the car in Woking with McLaren Automotive to be kept at the McLaren Technology Centre and used for promotional purposes. It was used at the Geneva International Motor Show as a show car by McLaren in 2014 alongside the brand new McLaren 650S and 650S Spider and again at Autosport in 2016 and has resided at McLaren HQ in Woking ever since. It was number 026 out of the 375 production.

It was later that year that the second McLaren P1 was seen and once again it was at a car show. In the June of 2016, Croft Circuit held a charity car show called the Dream Car Event which offered the attendees laps of the circuit in a variety of supercars and sports cars for a bit of money. Along with this there were a few static stands such as GC Motors who are a car dealership in Harrogate who brought a Ford GT and a few Porsches. However the main static stand was the Gibson Motorsport stand who had a motorsport section that comprised of a Radical SR8, a McLaren 650S GT3 and a McLaren P1 GTR, which later did laps of the circuit, as well as a road car section. The road car section was where the P1 was housed alongside a Porsche 918. It is number 058 out of the 375 production run and was finished in Supernova Silver over a black interior which was a very similar spec to the previous one which led me to believe it was the same one. However, the Autosport car had silver wheels and this example had gloss black rims and red brake calipers which made the difference slightly clearer. It was last known to be in the possession of McLaren Glasgow at their showroom.

The third P1 came little over 3 years later in 2019 at the 2019 Autosport International Show at the NEC where I first saw a P1. This car was on the stand of a car show website alongside a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray and sadly was cordoned off in order to keep it safe from the public but luckily it had its dihedral doors open so there were good angles of the car available to see. The car was finished in Volcano Orange which was the P1 launch spec and it had black alcantara interior with Volcano Orange piped stitching on the seats. This car was the first I saw to have influence by MSO which is the McLaren Special Operations division that add certain new elements to the car in this case such as the satin carbon fibre front and rear bumpers, carbon fibre rear wing, carbon fibre stealth badging and lots of carbon fibre inside the car. This car has a decent amount of history to it as it was originally sold by McLaren Manchester when it was first delivered and later appeared at Romans International in Banstead, where it appeared for sale for over £1million and is currently for sale at Coutts Automobiles in London where it resides. This is number 059 of the 375 production and was the best specced one I'd seen up until the next one I saw.

The fourth P1 came only 5 months later at the Bella Auto Supercar Show held at Bywell Hall near Newcastle and was by far the best specced McLaren P1 I had and still have ever seen. The Bella Auto show always provided surprises in the two years I visited such as having a Ferrari F50, Singer 911, Porsche 918 and two different Carrera GTs, yet the P1 made all of those seem as if they were nothing. Finished in a Musgravite Black Carbon Fibre, it was originally a standard painted body P1 but the owner re-specced the car in this carbon fibre purple colour which looked absolutely incredible. The interior was also stunning with grey alcantara and orange stitching to match what the car had on the engine. The carbon fibre engine was signed by Frank Stephenson who was the designer of the P1 which is a unique touch that makes the car even more special. The current owner has a 675LT in a similar spec as well as owning Senna #007. It has later been slightly changed again with an orange pinstripe running down the side of the car to match the orange brake calipers. I doubt I'll ever see another P1 in an as amazing spec as this one. This is number 350 of the 375 production.

The next P1 came at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed only 1.5 months after the previous P1 and was a very important P1 as this is one of the ones that McLaren retains for promotional use much like the original P1 I saw. This was P1 OOU which is the plate which is recognised as a Volcano Yellow car built at the end of the P1 production as a promotional car used for test drives in magazines such as Autocar, Road and Track and Octane. This was at Goodwood with McLaren to celebrate the launch of the new Senna GTR as well as the GT, 600LT Spider and 720S Spider and was quite a surprise to see as it was not listed as being among the supercar paddock in the programme. Given that this car was built at the end of the P1 production run, it is likely that this car is number 375 out of the 375 production making it the last production car. However it is in truth number 454 out of the 375 as it includes P1 GTR chassis, P1 GT chassis and the P1 LM chassis, meaning it is beyond the standard production series.

The latest P1 I have seen came at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed along with my 5th P1 prior. It came as a slight surprise as it was on a trade stand which wouldn't have been expected to have a P1. However it was the GVE London stand which in 2018 had a GT2 RS, AMG GTR, Porsche 956 and a Koenigsegg CCX-R Edition so I was expecting something special. So coming around the corner to the stand, I was shocked to see an MSO McLaren 675LT Spider, a Ferrari Enzo and this very special P1. Finished in Volcano Yellow with a black leather alcantara interior with yellow stitching, this car was fairly similar to the previous Volcano Yellow example that was situated less than a kilometre from this stand. This car also has a very interesting history as it was delivered new to Jakarta in Indonesia as the owner owned the McLaren dealership in Jakarta and acquired all of the P1 allocations for Jakarta. It was later sold to Tom Hartley Cars in Ashby De La Zouche where it was later sold to Amari Supercars in Preston and later to TH Boler in Oxfordshire. It then underwent one more sale to GVE London where it is currently for sale for just over £1.2million. The car only has 204 miles on the odometer and is number 049 of the 375 production.

Additional Cars

In 2015, McLaren released the ultimate version of the McLaren P1, being the GTR form. This was a track only, extreme car with almost 1000bhp and slick tyres. With 55 examples created, it was an extremely rare form of the standard P1 and with a £2million price, it was an extremely expensive version of the P1. I have seen a few examples of a P1 GTR as well as the even rarer P1 LM and P1 GT which are detailed below.

The first P1 GTR that I saw was at Autosport International 2016 which is where the first P1 road car was also located. Based on the Octane magazine stand, the stand was being unveiled as we arrived and it showed the T2 chassis P1 GTR. It wore a Harrods inspired livery based on the same livery worn by the F1 GTR in 1995. It is also the McLaren P1 GTR that is kept at Woking at the McLaren Technology Centre. It changed livery in 2016 to have a special James Hunt inspired livery but now it has returned to the Harrods livery. It is unknown which production number this P1 GTR is, however it is the example shown in the original press shots when the P1 GTR was announced and therefore it could be production number 2 out of the 55. It has the T2 chassis so this makes a slight amount of sense.

The second P1 GTR was at the same event but I later saw it at the Dream Car Event at Croft Circuit where it took laps of the track. It is owned by Gibson Motorsport which is based in the northern town of Darlington and is finished in a white and red livery to match Gibson's 650S GT3 and Radical race cars. It has also been seen at the JPC Prestige and High Performance Car Show in both 2017 and 2018 on the Gibson stand. This was good to see static at Autosport but was taken to the next level racing around Croft Circuit, hearing the 986bhp twin turbo V8 rumbling around the circuit and racing ahead of a fully fledged GT3 car, pulling away which showed the level of its speed and performance. This car is number 9 of the 55 production run.

The next P1 GTR has a very interesting story behind it. It was originally delivered to Paris in a satin black livery in 2016 where the owner participated in only one track event at Circuit de Paul Ricard and at the end of their ownership had put 350 miles on the odometer. The owner later sent the car to Lanzante in the UK who, for £24,000, road legalised the GTR so that it can be used on the roads rather than just on the track. This is when it was sent to auction via RM Sotheby's in their Villa Erba auction in 2017. It had an estimate of £3.2million-£3.6million and later failed to reach it's estimate and therefore failed to sell. The car then privately changed hands and was taken back to Lanzante for a special project which would convert the cars body into a longer, more streamlined version of the P1 GTR known as the GT. It referenced the F1 GT which was built in very limited numbers as a homologated version of the F1 GTR Longtails that raced in Le Mans. I saw this car on its debut at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed and it was finished in the same paint that was used on the original F1 GTs. It was an extremely cool car to see and although I didn't see the car on the hillclimb, it was nice to just look at and admire. It originally was number 33 of the 55 production and was the 12th GTR to have the Lanzante road legal treatment.

The final P1 GTR I have seen is not technically a P1 GTR as it was a version created by Lanzante based on the P1 GTR chassis known as the LM. It was a run of 5 GTRs that were lightened, with some elements of the GT and with road legality without conversion making it the ultimate version of the road legal McLaren P1. Of the five cars, there was one made in the colour UenoClinic grey which was the same colour as the McLaren F1 GTR 01R that won Le Mans in 1995 as a tribute to that very car. It was this one that I saw at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed on a small stand in front of a VIP section alongside an Aston Martin Vulcan test mule, a Porsche 911 GT2 RS and a Dodge Challenger Demon. It made its debut at the Festival of Speed in 2016 when it raced up the Goodwood hillclimb in 47.07 seconds which can be seen as ludicrously fast for a road car. This example was number 1 of the 5 production cars.