Photo: al.yasid / Instagram
Almost a decade ago, McLaren started production of the limited-series P1 rear mid-engine PHEV sports car. It was the spiritual successor of the iconic McLaren F1 and also their entry into the Holy Trinity of hybrid hypercars, alongside the mighty Porsche 918 Spyder and LaFerrari.
Today, its manufacturing ceased for a long time already and McLaren Automotive has moved on to other Ultimate models, such as the Senna, Speedtail, Elva, or Solus GT. Thus, aside from diehard fans, maybe few people remember the P1 GTR’s track-focused ethos. After all, there were so few of them produced (less than 60 units) that almost everyone – save for extreme McLaren enthusiasts – would be excused from forgetting its ultimate track-focused driver’s supercar goals.
Alas, the thrilling version does have its aficionados – such as the good folks over at Lanzante Motorsport that converted a few more P1 GTRs to a road-legal lifestyle in 2020 or the one-off P1 GTR by McLaren Special Operations from 2018 that was created for a special someone to pay homage to Ayrton Senna’s original F1 world champion title. Anyway, that was all in the real world, so very few ideas could be put into practice if you don’t have bank accounts as deep as the Mariana Trench.
But across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, just about anything is possible – even if you have a pretty darn hard time believing it (just like me). And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have London, UK-based virtual artist Al Yasid, aka al.yasid on social media, who is playing a digital game of guess the make and model - and we have bonkers hints pointing toward a couple of interesting facts.
First, “this is not a P1 GTR,” and the emphasis on making sure we know it’s anything else other than a McLaren probably indicates the digital project used the backbones of the PHEV hypercar to recreate “this American car” into something else after narrowing down the choice and saying that it is of the muscle car variety. Naturally, at this point and with the initial rear POV in view, a “guess the make and model” game provided lots of Chevrolet (C4 or C5 Corvette, Camaro SS) answers. However, some of the author’s fans also went towards more exotic ideas such as the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve from 2004 while others kept the General Motors line of thought and only switched the focus to the Pontiac lifestyle of the Firebird and/or Trans Am.
Luckily, there is already a second POV that sheds a bit of additional light on the potential outcome. And now that we also see the front a bit it is mostly clear that we are dealing with a mind-blowing, thoroughly bagged, and extra-widebody transformation of a fourth-generation (1993 to 2002 model years) Pontiac Firebird into a rear mid-engine McLaren P1 GTR-swapped clone! Hopefully, the author will continue to show us more of it, and soon.
Update: Exactly as we predicted, the author has now confirmed the yellow menace is not a Corvette but rather his vision regarding a custom Pontiac Firebird. And I have to say that I appreciate it more and more!
Alas, the thrilling version does have its aficionados – such as the good folks over at Lanzante Motorsport that converted a few more P1 GTRs to a road-legal lifestyle in 2020 or the one-off P1 GTR by McLaren Special Operations from 2018 that was created for a special someone to pay homage to Ayrton Senna’s original F1 world champion title. Anyway, that was all in the real world, so very few ideas could be put into practice if you don’t have bank accounts as deep as the Mariana Trench.
But across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, just about anything is possible – even if you have a pretty darn hard time believing it (just like me). And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have London, UK-based virtual artist Al Yasid, aka al.yasid on social media, who is playing a digital game of guess the make and model - and we have bonkers hints pointing toward a couple of interesting facts.
First, “this is not a P1 GTR,” and the emphasis on making sure we know it’s anything else other than a McLaren probably indicates the digital project used the backbones of the PHEV hypercar to recreate “this American car” into something else after narrowing down the choice and saying that it is of the muscle car variety. Naturally, at this point and with the initial rear POV in view, a “guess the make and model” game provided lots of Chevrolet (C4 or C5 Corvette, Camaro SS) answers. However, some of the author’s fans also went towards more exotic ideas such as the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve from 2004 while others kept the General Motors line of thought and only switched the focus to the Pontiac lifestyle of the Firebird and/or Trans Am.
Luckily, there is already a second POV that sheds a bit of additional light on the potential outcome. And now that we also see the front a bit it is mostly clear that we are dealing with a mind-blowing, thoroughly bagged, and extra-widebody transformation of a fourth-generation (1993 to 2002 model years) Pontiac Firebird into a rear mid-engine McLaren P1 GTR-swapped clone! Hopefully, the author will continue to show us more of it, and soon.
Update: Exactly as we predicted, the author has now confirmed the yellow menace is not a Corvette but rather his vision regarding a custom Pontiac Firebird. And I have to say that I appreciate it more and more!
Google News