Chris Gable
A pristine example of one of the world's most desirable supercars has netted a record $6.1 million at auction.
It controversially didn’t get a vote in our recent Gods and Dogs poll of most beautiful and ugliest cars of all time. But that hasn’t stopped someone from brushing aside international financial stress and stumping up a record $6.1 million for one at auction.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the last road-going McLaren F1 headlined yesterday’s RM Auction’s Automobiles of London sale in, well, London.
The car, chassis number 65, fetched a world record £2.3m (A$6.157m, to be precise) at the Battersea Park auction. Not bad for a car which cost about £540,000 (A$1.3 million) new.
The buyer’s identity has been kept under wraps but, word is, he’s an American collector, based in Houston, Texas. (And we doubt that it was George Dubya socking away a retirement gift to himself...)
Built in 1997, the one-owner car was the last road-going F1 to leave the factory and had only 484km on the clock. RM Auctions says the car was garaged in Asia, and 12 months before yesterday’s auction the owner had flown in a McLaren mechanic to service it. Prior to the auction, the car was sent for a full service to the McLaren factory in Surrey, from which it emerged with a clean bill of health.
Described by the auctioneers as being “flawless in every respect” and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the car was the trademark Magnesium Silver with black leather interior.
“It is essentially a new vehicle and remains virtually unused and untouched,” the extensive entry for the car in the RM Auctions catalogue read. “The buyer will of course receive the original Facom titanium tool kit and bespoke leather luggage. In addition, the carbon-fibre transmission tunnel adjacent to the driver’s seat has been signed by Gordon Murray himself.”
The pre-auction estimate for the car? Try £1,100,000-£1,400,000 (that’s A$2.67 – A$3.4 million). We're betting that even the auctioneers were gobsmacked when the hammer finally fell...
