ROBERT COUCHER
The Driver
Over the course of 130 years, many great marques have claimed to build the fastest road car in the world. Yet most of these companies – Bentley, Bugatti, Duesenberg, Iso and more – went to the wall because they simply could not flog their supercars in sufficient numbers. There’s no accounting for the punters’ lack of taste, is there?
Professor Gordon Murray, McLaren F1 design genius, set about creating the ultimate road car in the 1990s, having submitted his design sketch of a three-seater to Ron Dennis in 1988 on a flight back from the Italian Grand Prix. The pitch was accepted and Gordon created the F1 with his three signature requirements: at 1138kg it was extremely light; it featured a naturally aspirated BMW-sourced V12 with a then-shattering 627bhp; it had three seats abreast, the driver centrally located as in a fighter jet. The F1 was untainted by driver aids: not even a brake servo, let alone power steering, traction control, ABS or any of that devil’s work.
Launched in 1992, it smashed all preceding performance figures and won ‘The world’s fastest production car’ accolade according to
in 1998, posting a top speed of 240.1mph and crushing the 217.1mph set by a Jaguar XJ220. But this lightweight road rocket was designed from inception to be a comfortable roadgoing GT with air conditioning, a capacious cabin featuring electric windows, Kenwood multi-CD stereo (remember them?), and lots of cubbies in which to store specially fitted luggage and a golf bag that came as part of the £635,000 purchase price. There was a gold-plated titanium toolkit too, and a TAG Heuer Chronometer, likely greeted with a whiff of disdain by those who collect Patek Philippe limited editions.
Road-test articles were effusive in their praise of the car’s astonishing road-covering abilities. The associated glamour, too. One McLaren was being tested in Wales when it ‘failed to proceed’. A technician was helicoptered out to sort it with his laptop – no need to bother local AA man Jones in his Ford Transit van.
McLaren used the Chobham test circuit in Surrey to shakedown its F1 and for driver demos. As I think I have written before, its marketing director David Clark was out testing when I arrived with a fellow to do another car shoot. This guy made a few snide comments about the
Big Mac, so David took us for a squirt around the banked circuit. I can’t remember whether the snarky passenger threw up before or after he fell out of the F1 when we returned to the control tower.
Then Murray’s gold-plated (engine compartment and said tools) road car won at Le Mans in spectacular style in 1995 up against pure race prototypes – yet still the Park Lane showrooms stood empty as potential customers stayed away. Production ceased after only 64 road cars had been shifted, the other 42 being customer racing cars. The F1 is fabulous but it is also flawed. Murray’s pursuit of lightness and purity is always admirable but trying to shift a road car with 627bhp in the back and no driver aids at all… well, it ended in some tears. Famously, then-boss of BMW, Bernd Pischetsrieder, rolled and smithereened an F1 during high-speed testing in Namibia; own former columnist Rowan Akinson parked his example somewhat aggressively on the A605 in Northamptonshire, resulting in the UK’s largest-ever motor insurance claim at a little under a million quid. Other F1 crashers on a long list include space cadet Elon Musk, but our own urban cowboy Jay Leno seems to have kept his on the road to date.
Some years ago, classic car broker and F1 owner Simon Kidston let me drive his, chassis number 007, along some great roads in Europe. The McLaren was indeed fabulous but also intimidating. With that much power you had to concentrate every inch of the way and driving through orange cones on some ‘less-than-thought-out’ Italian roadworks was sweatinducing, even though the air-con was on full. I’d rather drive a ratty old expendable 911 on bald rear tyres!
It is apparent that The Great Gordon has decided now is the time for the son of F1: the T.50. A cut-price F1 at just £2.8m (only 100 to be made, most sold) where an F1 fetches around £10m today, the T.50 will preserve Gordon’s signature dish of lightweight construction, a massively powerful, naturally aspirated V12, and fighter-jet seating with a bit of fan-action aero thrown in for good measure.
It will also feature a brake servo, and all the F1 bugs have apparently been engineered out. Must ask fellow South African, the Professor the space cadet), when I next see him: ‘What took you so long, Bru?’
‘I CAN’T REMEMBER WHETHER THE SNARKY PASSENGER THREW UP BEFORE OR AFTER HE FELL OUT OF THE F1’