2-door 3-seater McLaren GT

Of all the (few) McLarens I drove, the one that intrigued me most was Gordon Murray’s incredible 1992 centre-seat F1 McLaren GT where the driver sat in a central seat with a passenger seat either side and slightly behind him. It gave the driver the sense of being in a Grand Prix car, conceived as an exercise in creating what its designer, Gordon Murray, hoped would be considered the ultimate road car.

Having driven the prototype for miles on British country roads 22 years ago, I have to say that the central seat was both the best and the worst feature of the car. Worst was the fact that on any normal road you followed the car in front, blinded for passing chances on either side, but that was an annoyance that surprised the first-time driver. The sheer performance of the 6.1-litre, 630bhp tailor-made BMW V12 swept away any of the mild initial irritation of the centre seat.

Gordon Murray brought all his F1 design talents together using high-tech and expensive materials such as carbon fibre, titanium, magnesium, Kevlar and gold. Gold?? The carbon fibre body and monocoque needed significant heat insulation so Gordon’s solution was to line the engine bay with a highlyefficient heat reflector: gold foil! Approximately 16 g (0.8 ounce) of gold was used in each car. The McLaren F1 was the first production road car to use a complete carbon fibre reinforced plastic monocoque chassis structure.

I was amazed to learn that there were 106 of these twodoor three-seaters sold, fitted with the 6.1-litre BMW with 6-speed box. Somehow I’d come to think that the car was so advanced design-wise that only one prototype had been built! In March 1988, the tri-seater reached 231mph (327kph) and with the rev-limiter unplugged, it reached 243mph (391kph). High prices as well as high speeds! Last year, chassis 066 made US$8.47 million at auction in Pebble Beach.